‘I have nothing. Yet I regret nothing’: John McAfee’s pinned tweet revealed his friends had ‘evaporated’ as he faced jail

Antivirus mogul John McAfee had revealed that his friends have “evaporated” due to the fear of association but said he “regrets nothing,” in an eerie tweet that came just a week before his death while lodged in his Spanish prison cell.

The post, which was pinned to McAfee’s Twitter feed, was his last post on the micro-blogging site before his passing on Wednesday.

“The US believes I have hidden crypto,” McAfee tweeted on 16 June. “I wish I did but it has dissolved through the many hands of Team McAfee (your belief is not required), and my remaining assets are all seized. My friends evaporated through fear of association. I have nothing. Yet, I regret nothing.”

The 75-years-old British-born software pioneer, who founded one of the world’s most famous anti-virus software, said to have died by suicide, the Spanish Justice Department said in a statement.

His death came hours after the Spanish High Court ruled in favour of extraditing him to the US where he was set to face charges of tax evasion and allegedly earning $13m by falsely promoting cryptocurrencies to unwitting investors.

He was arrested in Spain in October while at the Barcelona airport by law enforcement officials. He faced a potential sentence of more than two decades in prison if convicted in the US on tax charges that claimed he did not filed tax returns between 2014 and 2018.

Incidentally, McAfee in his previous tweets in November 2019 and later in October 2020, had suggested that if died by “suicide” in future, it would be because he was “whacked.”

“Getting subtle messages from US officials saying, in effect: ‘We’re coming for you McAfee! We’re going to kill yourself.’ I got a tattoo today just in case. If I suicide myself, I didn’t. I was whacked. Check my right arm,” he said in a tweet showing his “whacked” tattoo in 2019.

“I am content in here. I have friends. The food is good. All is well. Know that if I hang myself, a la Epstein, it will be no fault of mine,” he said in 2020 talking about convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in a Manhattan prison cell earlier that year. Authorities have said Epstein died by suicide.

On Wednesday, minutes after his deaths, an image of alphabet “Q” was posted from McAfee’s Instagram account, in what is believed to be a reference to a “QAnon” conspiracy theory.

QAnon is a conspiracy theory that believes former president Donald Trump was waging a secret war against a global cabal of cannibalistic, Satan-worshipping Democratic pedophiles. Mr Trump did not endorse the conspiracy but described QAnon activists as "people who love our country."

McAfee was no longer affiliated with the antivirus firm he founded and launched a string of companies like Tribal Voice, QuorumEx and Future Tense Central.