Kevin Paffrath

Paffrath was born in Germany on January 28, 1992. His parents immigrated from Wuppertal to the United States when he was 18 months old, and his parents divorced when he was six years old. In the summer before his senior year of high school, Paffrath moved to California to live with Lauren and her family, while finishing high school at Buena High School. Lauren's parents worked in real estate, and Paffrath became interested in the field. Lauren, who began to manage properties when she was 18 years old, works as a property manager for The Paffrath Organization. == Career ==

Paffrath earned his real estate license in 2010 and the same year purchased a condemned house with his future wife and fixed it up. They then began renovating additional homes and renting them out. Paffrath and his wife Lauren own the real estate business The Paffrath Organization, through which they buy, renovate, and rent properties in southern California. In 2017 they began to offer construction services through their organization but ended the venture 18 months later after losing $1million, which Paffrath attributed to narrow cost margins not allowing room for error. , Paffrath and his wife reportedly owned 22 properties, including one in which they live. His videos have discussed topics including real estate, the stock market, COVID-19 stimulus checks, cryptocurrency, and airline points. CNBC found that Paffrath earns most of his income from YouTube advertising revenue and affiliate programs, not real estate or stock market investing. In November 2022, after the collapse of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, Paffrath posted an apology video in which he claimed he was paid $2,500 every time he mentioned FTX in one of his videos. He believed he had one of the smaller deals and claimed other influencers had six-figure deals with the exchange. In a telephone interview with MarketWatch from a cruise with family, he said, "If I could go back in time, I would undo it all in a heartbeat. We failed here. Everybody was fooled". Paffrath claimed the income from the FTX deal only accounted for three percent of his total income for the year. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, he referred to this as a "scar" on him as an influencer. On November 29, 2022, Paffrath launched "The Meet Kevin Pricing Power ETF" under ticker symbol $PP. The ETF was later closed by Paffrath in February 2025 following “performance woes and souring costs”. He also operates HouseHack. ==Legal issues==

Ramsey Solutions, a media company, owned by finance personality Dave Ramsey, sued Paffrath in 2018. Ramsey alleged breach of contract, stealing trade secrets, and defamatory statements. Paffrath had posted videos critical of Ramsey and his business practices. One video was entitled "Dave Ramsey: Exposed" where Paffrath claimed Ramsey's business provided "cold-as-ice leads" for real estate sales and collected a fee for "doing nothing". Paffrath stated that he had ended his relationship with Ramsey Solutions before making the videos and believed he did not violate a contract. Paffrath also claimed the lawsuit was an attempt at censorship which violated his right to free speech. The case moved to federal court in 2019, and was settled privately out of court later that year. Paffrath's videos mentioned in the lawsuit are no longer on YouTube. In a May 2021 interview with KTXL discussing his gubernatorial candidacy, Paffrath expressed regret for the "YouTube prank" and said he had gotten "carried away with the entertainment aspect of YouTube". The suit alleged that Kevin Paffrath amongst a number of other defendants “promoted, assisted in, and/or participated in” the sale of “unregistered securities” by FTX. Paffrath subsequently agreed the terms of a settlement for his part in the case, the details of which have not yet been disclosed. == 2021 California gubernatorial candidacy ==

On May 17, 2021, Paffrath announced his candidacy as a Democrat in the 2021 California gubernatorial recall election, which was held on September 14, 2021, and ultimately resulted in sitting governor Gavin Newsom not being recalled. Instagram briefly removed Paffrath's campaign announcement post from their platform. According to Paffrath, Instagram notified him that they had removed his post, in which he described Newsom as a "weanie baby", under its harassment guidelines. Paffrath told Fox News he suspected the post was taken down intentionally and that the removal was related to its parent company Facebook's donations to Newsom's causes. A Facebook spokesperson said the company's donations had gone towards coronavirus relief, not the governor's campaign. Shortly after Fox News inquired about the removal of the post, it was restored, and a spokesperson said it had been removed in error. Paffrath sued the Secretary of State of California to allow him to be listed on the ballot as "Kevin 'Meet Kevin' Paffrath". The court denied his petition on July 21, finding that "Meet Kevin" was nonetheless a brand and not a nickname or formal name. In August 2021, Paffrath's attorneys sent a cease and desist letter to CNN related to their reporting that "no Democrats are competing against their own party's governor." Fox News reported the CNN article was subsequently revised to state, "no party-backed Democrats are competing against their own party's governor" and suggested CNN should have been aware of Paffrath from recent press coverage. 61.9% of voters opposed recalling Newsom. In the ballot question asking which candidate should replace Newsom if the recall was successful, Paffrath came in second place to Republican Larry Elder, with around 706,000 votes (9.6%) to Elder's 3.5million (48.4%). == References ==