James O’Keefe Has Earned At Least $1.9 Million Helming Project Veritas

Project Veritas has paid its founder James O’Keefe at least $1.9 million since 2011, according to the nonprofit’s mandatory disclosures filed with New York State. 

O’Keefe didn’t start out making much money from the group, which uses hidden cameras and careful editing to advance conservative causes. In 2011, O’Keefe reported working 50 hours a week for the organization, yet he received no disclosed compensation. The organization was operating on a modest budget at the time, collecting about $400,000 from donors annually. 

In 2012, O’Keefe made a solid middle-class income—$56,000, according to the filings. Donations increased that year to $738,000. Both O’Keefe’s salary and the revenues of his organization expanded every year after that until 2016, when he was earning $318,000 and Project Veritas was taking in $4.9 million.  

While Project Veritas’ revenue shot up to $8 million in 2017—Trump’s first year in the White House—O’Keefe’s salary dipped to $305,000. But it then ticked up again after that. In 2019, O’Keefe earned $396,000 in salary, and his organization took in $12.2 million of revenue.  

James O’Keefe’s salary has increased 608% while leading Project Veritas.

There aren’t a lot of people doing what O’Keefe does—capturing damning footage of journalists with hidden cameras and releasing it online, making comparisons of his salary difficult. 

Next to other nonprofit leaders involved in media, he earns a tidy—though not exorbitant—sum. According to the latest filings, the nonprofit that oversees Mother Jones, a liberal magazine, pays its president $225,000, while generating $16.6 million in annual revenue. The Daily Caller News Foundation, which publishes conservative content online, pays its chief development officer $138,000. Judicial Watch, another right-leaning group, pays its treasurer $395,000. And ProPublica, an investigative news outlet, compensates its president with $416,000.  

Filings for Project Veritas are not yet available for 2020 and 2021. Asked what O’Keefe earned those years, a spokesperson for Project Veritas responded, “I’m hoping you can share what your salary was in 2020 and 2021?” before signing off, “In eternal appreciation for your highly serious journalistic efforts.”  

Last week, the FBI searched O’Keefe’s New York apartment and the homes of two associates in connection with a Justice Department investigation into a diary reportedly stolen from the president’s daughter, according to the New York Times.