A Truly Mind-Blowing Theory About Tom Massie’s Sex Secrets Exposé

How a memestock cult exposed the Kentucky congressman’s sex secrets.

(Photo illustration by The Bulwark / Photos: Getty, Shutterstock, CynthiaForFlorida)

BEFORE HIS DOUBLE-DIGIT PRIMARY DEFEAT on Tuesday, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) spent the final days of his campaign dogged by an ex-girlfriend’s revelations about their sex life.

In an appearance on Laura Loomer’s online show, Republican activist Cynthia West revealed that Massie called his penis “pine cone,” and claimed he slept with Rep. Lauren Boebert just weeks after his wife’s death in 2024. Over the course of two hours, West spilled numerous details about the dirty talk going down in Massie’s boudoir. What emerged is a portrait of a man with just the kind of rich fantasy life you might expect from a libertarian once described as the “godfather of ‘dildonics.’” (For his part, Massie has acknowledged the relationship but not addressed West’s specific claims.)

I couldn’t understand what on earth West was thinking. Why would an apparently sane person—who is herself running for office—publicly expose the most private details of her intimate life to Laura Loomer, of all people?

Of course, we can’t rule out the hidden hand of Trumpworld. Trump, who promoted Loomer’s interview with West, clearly disliked Massie and helped drive him out of office. And for her part, West first publicized her salacious claims with the help of a Kentucky lawyer she described as meeting through a mutual friend “in political circles,” though she insists she isn’t getting paid. In January, West posted a picture of herself driving to what she said was Mar-a-Lago.

Still, if it was always this easy to convince the ex-lovers of Trump critics to kiss and tell for no clear personal gain, I have to think we’d know a lot more about other politicians’ pine cones.

I think part of the answer to the strange question of West’s motivations lies in a very different type of dirty deeds. I’m talking about West’s affiliation with a cult-like group of memestock investors known as “MMTLP,” who dream of attaining untold riches—and resent lawmakers like Massie who won’t help them.

While Massie would have almost certainly lost Tuesday’s primary even without the revelations about his sex life, his, ahem, passionate collision with West and her conspiracy theories offers a glimpse into how smear campaigns come together in right-wing media—and a cautionary tale for libidinous congressmen everywhere.

As West’s jilted-lover revenge-tour began in earnest this week, she offered several clues to her “MMTLP” affiliations that were barely noticed by the national media. For instance, she shared an X post that linked Massie with Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Gates and argued he had betrayed members of the MMTLP movement, despite dating “MMTLP shareholder/advocate” West.

“Interesting,” West wrote.

She didn’t respond to a request for comment.

So just what the heck is MMTLP?

Well, back in June 2021, a gaggle of retail investors enchanted with the recent explosion of memestocks (like Gamestop and AMC) became convinced that a little-known company called Meta Materials was about to go “to the moon.” They piled money into an offering that combined Meta Materials’s stock with that of a stripper pole manufacturer. The Frankenstein stock that emerged was identified by the ticker “MMTLP.”

Investors felt sure that the stock was facing the type of “short squeeze” that would cause its price to skyrocket—the very thing that had propelled Gamestop to extraordinary heights just months earlier.

This fantasy, according to a 2024 SEC complaint, was exactly what executives at the combined companies wanted investors to believe. The SEC alleged that, in an effort to hold on to oil leases and prop up their sagging businesses, the heads of the combined companies colluded to fool small investors into believing the price would explode in a short squeeze. The scheme worked—investors pumped $137.5 million into the MMTLP stock in the frenzy, almost tripling its share price when it reached a high of $11.65.

Sensing something sketchy, federal regulators halted trading right before the company went private—cutting off any chance at a lucrative short squeeze, and leaving retail MMTLP investors stuck with a bag of worthless, untradeable stocks.

Rather than blaming the companies that hatched the scheme, angry MMTLP holders tried to convince the government to bail them out and punish the regulatory bodies they claim rigged the game in favor of short-sellers. Even now, years later, they still bemoan their substantial losses in live X spaces, or dress up in bird costumes to demand justice. Inevitably, the bagholders have concocted conspiracy theories that blame their misfortunes on interference from a cabal that stretches from Epstein to meddling federal regulators.

West herself became a minor but controversial celebrity in the MMTLP community for alternately predicting that investors “are gonna be freaking rich” and complaining about the dire state of her own finances after the trading halt.

Under the name “Cyntax Queen of the Metaverse,” she posted pictures of herself dressed up as the Statue of Liberty, attended at least one MMTLP protest, and claimed in one video that both her own marriage and that of a friend had been destroyed as a result of their investments in MMTLP.

“My marriage is done,” West said. Others, she said, had lost their lives.

Fed up, West took her campaign for MMTLP justice into the real world, where she met with Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) and tried and failed to meet with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).

MMTLP’s defrauded investors certainly aren’t the first stock-market participants to fall into conspiracy theories and dreams of a government bailout after seeing a big bet fail. The people who years ago bought essentially worthless Iraqi dinars in the hopes that the American government would “revalue” the currency (and make them rich) can still be seen online asking Trump to make them whole. Back in the 1990s, investors in a scam called Omega became convinced that a government conspiracy had stopped them, too, from becoming wealthy. That movement later grew into part of QAnon.

Incredibly, though, MMTLP activists have actually gotten some traction. Both Bill Pulte, a top Trump henchman and housing official, and Andrew Bailey, now a co-deputy FBI director, endorsed the MMTLP investors’ theories before taking office.

“The people are fucking livid about this,” Pulte told right-wing influencer and alleged sex trafficker Andrew Tate in 2024, emphasizing that the MMTLP cause had gained something of a “cult-like following.”

In 2023, seventy-four members of Congress signed a letter demanding more answers about MMTLP. Massie, notably, didn’t sign—making him an enemy and a target for angry MMTLP bagholders awaiting their cash.

After Massie and West split in early 2025, West appears to have carried a grudge against her former paramour for not embracing the shareholders’ conspiracy theories. In a 2025 X post, she claimed that dating Massie had taught her how rigged the system was against small investors and the American republic itself. When a MMTLP shareholder on X asked Massie to help their cause, West cut in.

“He doesn’t care,” she replied. “Your [sic] wasting your time.”

In her moment of newfound notoriety, West has made other references back to her status as a sort of niche celebrity in the MMTLP world. On Loomer’s show, she said Massie made her delete her pro-MMTLP account on X when they were dating. (This isn’t Loomer’s first MMTLP rodeo: She previously featured another MMTLP activist who goes by the investing alias “Drew Diligence” on her show.)

Investors stuck with the worthless stock have reacted with both excitement and embarrassment to West’s new prominence. Many seem to hope that her intervention to help Trump’s campaign against Massie might inspire the president to somehow unlock their lost gains.

As for Massie, they think he got what he deserved for ignoring their plight.

“You should have helped MMTLP and respect [sic] Cynthia,” crowed one jilted investor to Massie after Loomer posted about West’s story. “Now instead you got MMTLPed.”