A new testimony from WWE President Nick Khan directly contradicts Vince McMahon’s own public statement about the nature of the government investigation against him.
In January 2025, McMahon settled with the SEC over undisclosed payments he made while serving as WWE’s CEO and Chairman. He was ordered to pay a $400,000 penalty and repay WWE $1.3 million. At the time, McMahon released a statement that downplayed the entire matter, saying,
“Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies. There has been a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading. In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE. I’m thrilled that I can now put all this behind me.”
However, Khan’s deposition, made public through the ongoing TKO shareholder lawsuit in Delaware’s Court of Chancery (via Brandon Thurston at POST Wrestling), tells a very different story.
When asked when he first learned the DOJ was looking into matters beyond accounting, Khan said,
“When the search warrants for the devices were served upon Vince, Brad Blum, and Vince’s personal assistant and when those warrants were sent from Vince’s lawyers to WWE’s lawyers, and they were read to me and it included sex trafficking is when I was aware of it.”
Khan also confirmed that DOJ prosecutors asked him about “sex crimes” during his own government interview. He further recalled that a grand jury subpoena received by WWE after September 2, 2022, also referenced sex trafficking, saying,
“In hearing you say it, I do recall when I read the grand jury subpoena that it said something about trafficking in there.”
A search warrant was executed on McMahon on July 17, 2023. McMahon had negotiated multiple NDAs with women who accused him of sexual misconduct over the years, and news of the hush money arrangements broke publicly in June 2022.
Former employee Janel Grant filed a lawsuit in January 2024, accusing McMahon of sex trafficking and sexual assault, and that case is still ongoing. McMahon’s representatives said in early 2025 that the investigation had concluded without any charges, and McMahon has denied all allegations of sexual misconduct.