‘Severed ALL Ties’: ZeroDarkTony’s Biggest Donor Says He’s Done

On Wednesday night, the account announced it was done.

“After numerous inquiries, 86 GOP has decided to make public that he severed ALL ties with Tony D’Amato aka ZDT effective September 2, 2026.

“There will be no additional public comments made by 86 GOP regarding this decision.”

It gave no reason, and did not say who had been asking.

The money coming from this account funded ZeroDarkTony’s streams for quite awhile. In D’Amato’s monetized chat records from July 2025 to August 2026, accounts using the 86 GOP name on YouTube and Rumble paid him $11,739.30, according to a Hero Not Zero analysis. That is nearly half of all chat revenue in those records, and nearly four times what the next-biggest donor gave.

That total is a floor, since our own analysis period began in July 2025, well after 86 GOP had been pouring in money via Super Chats and Rumble Rants.  It is also more than the $7,757.91 in restitution a Los Angeles judge ordered D’Amato to pay in June, in the criminal case brought by the City Attorney’s office. Even after YouTube’s 30 percent and Rumble’s 20 percent cuts, roughly $8,500 of 86 GOP’s money reached D’Amato, before taxes and app-store fees.

The court has ordered him to pay $75 a month. At that pace, the restitution would take more than eight and a half years to clear.

One account, two names

YouTube gives every channel a permanent ID that survives name and handle changes. The channel that posted Wednesday’s statement, 86 GOP (@86GOPFOREVER), carries the ID UCXQyr8DIneac28V-qT5NvCw, according to its public page.

That ID appears on 104 payments in D’Amato’s YouTube chat records over about a year, worth $8,765.30. In the records, the account appears as “86 GOP” through October 2025 and as “@86GOPFOREVER” from Dec. 31 on. The label changed. The account did not.

On Rumble, an account called 86GOP added 17 paid Rants worth $2,974. Rumble uses its own account numbers, so no shared ID ties it to the YouTube channel. The case rests on circumstance: the shared name; a taste for amounts ending in 86 ($86 on both platforms, $186 and $286 on Rumble); four days on which both accounts paid; and an April 8 Rumble stream D’Amato titled “5 QUESTIONS WITH 86.”

Hero Not Zero counts the two as one donor. Neither platform has confirmed the link.

The 86 GOP name may not be the whole story. Four other accounts supplied about 36 percent of D’Amato’s chat revenue in the same records, and many viewers, along with Hero Not Zero’s income analysis, suspect the same person is behind them as well. Two of them repeatedly paid during the same streams as 86 GOP.

If that is right, this same donor actually accounts for 84 percent of everything D’Amato’s chat paid him. The link is unconfirmed.

Paying to be heard

Most of the YouTube money went to Super Chats, which highlight a paid message in the live chat, and to gift memberships, which the buyer hands out to other viewers. The account gave away 870 of them.

A $300 Super Chat on Sept. 14, 2025, read:

“I am happy to see these low lives forced to accept accountability for their nihilistic and nefarious behavior.”

On Oct. 10, 2025, with D’Amato facing 26 criminal counts, the Rumble account paid $286 for a pep talk.

“Stay safe and don’t lose faith in the legal system.”

D’Amato went dark in November and most of December, a stretch that coincided with bench warrant proceedings in his case. He entered a plea on Dec. 23 and went live again on Dec. 31.

The 86 GOP channel paid him that same day. In January, it supplied nearly nine of every 10 dollars he collected in chat.

Many of the paid messages took aim at D’Amato’s critics. During an April 8 Rumble stream, the account paid $50 to sign off.

“Thanks, everyone. Have a great evening and enjoy the devolution of DOA.”

DOA is Scott Hochstetter, a Scientology protestor D’Amato has fought in court.

Fading before the break

The giving had slowed long before Sept. 2. From September 2025 through April 2026, the 86 GOP accounts paid $11,095.40. From May through Aug. 8, they paid $643.90.

Other donors pulled back too. The records cannot say whether that reflects less giving, fewer streams or fewer donations shown on screen.

On July 30, the YouTube account paid $86 to chide him.

“Just for the record, I did not approve of the voodoo victory dance, but I digress. Well done for acknowledging the faux pas.”

The next day, after an audio clip of a July 20 post by D’Amato was played in court, Judge Jannet Perez Santiso found him preliminarily in violation of probation. 

The account’s last recorded payment, $86 on Aug. 2, came with congratulations.

“Congrats on the new channel and thanks for providing fresh pizzas to the LA homeless population.”

At the Aug. 27 hearing, the judge raised D’Amato’s restitution payments to $75 a month, effective Sept. 1, one day before the date 86 GOP gave for the break. 

Four days later, D’Amato began filing copyright strikes against Hero Not Zero’s YouTube channel. Every one was contested, and the channel is up.

The 86 GOP statement does not tie its date to any of these events.

What remains unknown

The account says it is done talking. Chat records from 106 more of D’Amato’s streams, from Aug. 9 through Oct. 21, show no further payments from it. Its last recorded payment is still the $86 on Aug. 2. The @86GOPFOREVER account kept posting unpaid messages in his chat until the night of the Aug. 27 hearing and has not appeared there since.

Few others are paying in chat either. Across those streams, the records show $683.63 in gift memberships from all viewers, about two dozen Jewels (YouTube’s animated gifts, whose value chat does not show) and no Super Chats at all.

Chat is not the only way to pay him. Since late September, D’Amato has asked viewers to give to a legal fund through Cash App and Venmo, which leave no trace in chat records. On Oct. 2 he told viewers the fund was at “almost $1,000.”

One name stood out. On Oct. 1, hours after a judge put off ruling on his $23,197 fee request against Jarred Brooks, D’Amato told his stream he wanted “to thank everybody who contributed and helped out with this stuff.” The first name he listed was “86,” followed by four others and “everybody else who contributed to the legal fund.”

D’Amato used the same shorthand for the donor in the title of his April 8 stream, “5 QUESTIONS WITH 86.” But he did not say when 86 contributed or how much, and the fee request was filed Aug. 18, before the date 86 GOP gave for the break. Nothing in the records shows money moving between them after Sept. 2.

In other October streams, D’Amato defended 86 against critics and described meeting him for lunch.

What they do show is how much of D’Amato’s support ran through one name. In more than a year of records, a single YouTube channel and its apparent Rumble twin supplied about half of everything his chat audience paid him. If the other alt accounts that supplied nearly the other half are also him, he alone bankrolled ZeroDarkTony’s ability to stream full-time.

 As of Sept. 2, by its own account, that support is gone.

Could the donor be sued?

The restitution order binds only D’Amato. But if one person bankrolled most of what his chat paid him, could the people he targeted on those streams sue the person paying?

Possibly. Under California law, anyone who knows another person’s conduct is wrongful and gives substantial assistance or encouragement can be held liable for it, according to the state’s civil jury instructions. Even ordinary transactions can qualify, an appeals court held in Casey v. U.S. Bank, if the person knew they were helping a specific wrong.

The case would turn on knowledge, and the timeline is not helpful to the donor. In October 2025, the Rumble account paid to urge D’Amato not to lose faith in the legal system while he faced 26 criminal counts. After prosecutors alleged in an April 24 filing that his livestreams violated his probation, the accounts paid six more times, the last two days after a judge found him preliminarily in violation.

Scale matters too. The more direct and substantial the help, the more readily a court can infer culpable intent, the U.S. Supreme Court said in Twitter v. Taamneh. By the records, this help was neither small nor passive: nearly half of D’Amato’s chat income, and possibly far more. The law also covers encouragement, not just money, and many of the paid messages took aim at the same critics D’Amato targeted on air.

A donor would still have defenses. Money given to support someone’s speech can carry First Amendment protection, and California’s anti-SLAPP law lets defendants seek early dismissal of suits over protected speech. A plaintiff would also have to tie the money to specific harm.

The records show which account was paying, how much, and what it said while it paid. What the person behind it knew, and what he meant the money to do, is what a court would be asked to decide.

Sources

Donation figures come from exported YouTube and Rumble live-chat records of ZeroDarkTony broadcasts from July 7, 2025, to Aug. 8, 2026; they do not capture payments made before that window. Totals include two 86 GOP gift-membership purchases, on Oct. 16 and Dec. 31, 2025, that were missing from the original export and were recovered from archived chat files on Oct. 22, 2026. Rumble Rants with no recorded amount, including three from 86GOP, are excluded. Non-U.S. currency is converted at approximate current rates, and dates are in Pacific time. The YouTube channel ID was checked against the channel’s public page on Oct. 21, 2026; the link to the Rumble account rests on name and behavior. Court details come from minute orders dated June 26, July 31 and Aug. 27, 2026, in People v. Damato, Los Angeles Superior Court case 24CJCM07073-01. Platform fees come from YouTube Help and a summary of Rumble’s creator terms. Chat records and D’Amato’s on-air remarks come from Hero Not Zero’s recordings of his streams and their machine transcripts. Cash App and Venmo payments do not appear in chat records.