Kriti Mehrotra
If there’s one thing we know about the adult entertainment industry, it is that it has recently been surrounded by a lot of controversies stemming from either Christian beliefs or sheer criminality. However, as carefully explored in Netflix’s ‘Money Shot: The Pornhub Story,’ the titular erotic platform is the one to have found itself in the midst of it all owing to its incredible brand recognition. So now, if you simply wish to learn more about the way this entire intricate ordeal has affected site co-owner Feras Antoon, particularly in terms of finances, we’ve got the crucial details for you.
How Did Feras Antoon Earn His Money?
Although Feras was born in the beautiful city of Damascus, Syria, on June 29, 1975, he mainly grew up in Quebec, Canada, as his entire family had soon decided to relocate for better opportunities. He thus obtained his core education from a local high school before pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Engineering from Montreal’s renowned public research Concordia University in the late 1990s. That’s where he first came across fellow engineers Stephane Manos, Ouissam Youssef, Matt Keezer, and David Tassillo during a foosball tournament, only for them to develop a close bond.
In fact, Feras’ association with these batchmates/alma maters went to such an extent it led him to co-establish his first porn website — Brazzers — for Mansef Productions towards the mid-2000s. He hence specialized in just the heavy-chested, older women category of explicit video distribution at first, only to expand his wings as time passed by experiencing other erotic aspects as well. However, once industry tycoon Fabian Thylmann came into the picture to make Mansef a part of his own conglomerate Manwin in 2010, the Syrian-Canadian chose to evolve into a manager.
Feras did not wish to let go of his hard work like three of the five original partners despite the $140 million deal, meaning he and David Tassillo alone joined Manwin as high-level executives. This clear loyalty is ostensibly one of the reasons why Fabian re-sold the entire business to this duo, plus investor Bernd Bergmair, for nearly $100 million following his tax evasion arrest in 2012. That’s when the co-owners chose to rebrand the organization as MindGeek, which already had Pornhub, Brazzers, Redtube, Youporn, Xtube, plus several other subsidiaries under its name.
The truth is the company was already a well-oiled machine by 2013, yet it was the unique way in which the new Chief Executive Officer Feras ran it that helped it become a full-fledged monopoly. Therefore, of course, they garnered significant name, fame, success, and wealth over the ensuing years, that is, until a 2020 New York Times expose accused Pornhub of sexual abuse/trafficking. This obviously affected MindGeek’s traffic — albeit not a lot considering the different alternatives — but the outright public backlash still led Feras to resign from his position for good in the summer of 2022.
Feras Antoon’s Net Worth
Despite the fact Feras stepped away from the workings of MindGeek in 2022, he remained its co-owner and thus its beneficiary until Ethical Capital Partners (ECP) acquired it in March 2023. Therefore, with this massive sale to the private equity firm as well as the truth it used to generate an annual revenue of at least $200-400 million in the last few years, the Montreal native is undeniably a rich man. It has also been reported that the former CEO has a lot of property assets in his Canadian hometown, so as per our best estimates, Feras has a net worth of around $10 million at the moment.
