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Meet the Bodyguards Signing Up to Protect America’s Frightened Billionaires

::: spoiler full article part 1

::: Meet the Bodyguards Signing Up to Protect America’s Frightened Billionaires Grayson Schaffer, Bryan Regan 29–37 minutes

ON a warm day in Las Vegas last January, I was being escorted through a public park by my protection detail. The park was mostly empty, save for a few midday joggers and dog walkers. The detail, consisting of three men and two women walking close to me, and one man farther ahead and another behind, had a clear line of sight across the expanse that also serves as flood control during torrential summer rainstorms. Everything seemed peaceful but, suddenly, there was trouble. “Contact left!” Elijah Shaw shouted. My two lead escorts froze, considering their options. The front-left agent looked right, then left. The escort next to her—a retired cop in his 60s wearing classic BluBlockers—instinctively reached for his holster and came up brandishing his thumb and forefinger like a pistol.

If the threat had been real, and not part of a training drill three days into a course put on by Icon Global, a company that offers personal protection for executives and celebrities, I’d be a goner, according to Shaw, who is Icon’s founder. Shaw is six feet three, Black, and in his early 50s and moves with the poise and agility of an experienced martial artist. At that moment, he was not happy with his trainees. “Make a decision, then fix it,” he bellowed like an offensive-line coach. “Whatever you do, don’t freeze!”

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Elijah Shaw, a former bodyguard to 50 Cent and Usher, and CEO, Icon

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Sam Alicea, an executive protection expert and Icon vice president

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DeMarcus Merritt, a celebrity protector and recent Icon graduate.

If you’ve been following the news, you’re probably aware that right now is a good time to be looking for work in executive protection. In December 2024, UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, completely unguarded, was shot and killed outside a midtown Manhattan hotel by a ghost-gun-wielding alleged killer in his 20s whose name is now better known than that of the man he is accused of murdering. In April 2025, an arsonist set fire to the Pennsylvania governor’s residence while Josh Shapiro and his family were inside. Then in May, two Israeli embassy staff were shot and killed in Washington, DC. In June, two Minnesota state lawmakers and their spouses were shot in their homes. In July, a former football player who believed he might be suffering from CTE opened fire inside the Midtown office tower that houses NFL headquarters, injuring an NFL employee and killing a security guard, a police officer, and two office workers from other companies. In September, Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University. In November, National Guard troops were ambushed, one fatally, in Washington, DC. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s house was attacked two times in two days this past April, first by means of a Molotov cocktail and then by gunfire. Later that month, a third alleged assassination attempt on President Donald Trump was foiled at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Among the victims and perpetrators in all these cases were avatars of every political persuasion and cultural flash point of the past decade, like a winning bingo card of our social and moral disintegration.

Bodyguarding is at least as old as Alexander the Great’s somatophylakes, or “body guardians,” and the Praetorian Guard, which emerged to protect Roman rulers as the Republic gave way to imperial rule around 27 BCE. During that time, as now, the erosion of democratic norms and free discourse helped create a market to keep the powerful alive. Princeton’s Bridging Divides Initiative, which tracks political violence in the US, recently published a special report noting a 30 percent rise in targeted and political attacks between 2024 and 2025. One term used to explain similar upticks in recent history is “stochastic terrorism,” which was coined by British catastrophist Gordon Woo in 2002. The idea is that, after 9/11, anticipated media coverage and increased public fear had motivated a statistically significant rise in apparently random acts of violence. Today, there are additional potential accelerants: a scummy soup of social media; unchecked inequality; and unrestrained bombast at every level of government and society, algorithmically optimized to reward the most controversial voices.

“We’re in an era where everyone can have an opinion and voice their opinion. The more extreme or outrageous or salacious, the more attention and engagement it gets,” said Shaw. “And as you get rewarded for that, you do it more and more.” The repercussions for violence feel diminished, too, he said: “You storm the Capitol and don’t get in trouble; why wouldn’t I storm the Capitol? If I get to shoot the guy who’s the head of UnitedHealthcare and I’m kind of cute—why wouldn’t the next person do that?”

According to security giant G4S’s annual World Security Report, 42 percent of corporate-security chiefs noted “a significant increase in threats of violence against company executives.” Months after the murder of its CEO, UnitedHealthcare disclosed an additional $1.7 million in executive-security spending. Apple’s 2026 proxy statement filed with the SEC lists $887,870 in security expenses for Tim Cook, up 8.2 percent, and Microsoft reported a 45 percent jump in expenses for chairman and chief executive Satya Nadella’s personal travel security.

Companies are often wary of speaking about security services with the press. But a boarding school friend of mine who started his own private-security firm in Connecticut told me that Shaw was the bodyguard whom other bodyguards emulate. Shaw’s trajectory—from bouncing at clubs, to bodyguarding celebrities, to selling specialized services to rich people with no interest in being famous themselves—is common among the private-security elite. He has a public-facing business in his 18-year-old training program for bodyguards, and he’s not afraid of exposure. He offers a view into what any company or person who can afford the considerable cost of his services can expect and allows me to meet the protectors who are volunteering to meet their demand, stepping into the breach of what looks increasingly like a literal culture war.

Taking Shaw’s class were 25 aspiring “protectors,” as they’re known in the industry. To the rest of us they are bodyguards, though that title—BG—usually belongs only to the lead protector, the team leader who knows everything about you: your bathroom schedule, the credible death threats against you, which ex-girlfriends have your new cell number. Sometimes the BG is also the driver; other BGs ride shotgun and watch for tails using the side-view mirror while a trained driver mans the wheel. Often, the BG supplies charging cables and breath mints. Always, the BG keeps you, the “P,” or principal, within arm’s reach, ready to move you off the X (the point of attack) at the first hint of a glitter bomb, an incoming milkshake, or, God forbid, a bullet. The rest of the team stakes the perimeter, monitoring wedges of the compass and layering themselves between the P and danger.

Shaw’s nightmare, as an employer, is a hotheaded agent who wants to win street fights. “Cover and evacuate,” he said. “This is a job where running away is the preferred method.”

Among the trainees were a former college-football player, a female bodybuilder, a smattering of past and active law enforcement and military, and one five-foot-three former Romanian gymnast, Andreea Vladoi. She’s also a former mixed martial artist and said she has been in private security for several years. She was my bodyguard in this exercise.

After Shaw gave a few more tips to his class, he ran the drill again. “Contact right!” he shouted. This time the guards in front threw up their arms, making their already large bodies an even larger shield for me. I felt myself being lifted off the ground by my belt as my five-foot-three BG pivoted me cleanly over her hip and hustled me toward our 8 o’clock. Shaw smiled and nodded. “It took us two days, but we finally got to know our left and right.”

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Kendra Geronimo, a firearms instructor and Miami Icon protector

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Kevin Ghee, an Icon instructor specializing in sports and news personalities

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Joseph Howell, a risk-management specialist, former US Marine, and CEO, Kingsman Security Solutions

Shaw runs his course out of a conference room at the Palms Casino Resort. It’s a bit like Tony Robbins hosting The Apprentice. He fills the space with outgoing optimism and unconditional encouragement of his students, who understand that if they perform well, they may land on the perimeter of one of Shaw’s coveted security details. He prepares scenarios based on real events, then picks on students to choose a course of action and defend their reasoning. Example: You’re in a convoy of Land Cruisers on a driving safari during your client’s trip to the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Not far ahead, there’s a burning Mini Cooper with Univision host Raúl De Molina still in the front seat. You’ve got your clients spread across two vehicles, and the only rule of the park, home to numerous lions and other megafauna, is: Don’t get out of the car. “What do you do?” he asked. “Are you going to rescue the driver? This is not theoretical!” cont...

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