“Chuck You” – Parody website tries to take down US billionaire Charles Schwab by putting his shady land deals with the Suharto family in the spotlight

Screenshot of the actual Charles Scwab financial services website, next to a screenshot of the “Chuck You” site 

Somebody on the internet really doesn’t like Charles Schwab. One of the most powerful businessmen in the US, worth an estimated $5.1 billion dollars, Schwab is the target of recently launched parody website, “Chuck You,” that accuses him of dirty dealings with former dictator Suharto and his family.

Although the “Chuck You” domain name has been registered for a year, the site appears to be quite new, given that one of its central piece of evidence tying the US business magnate to Suharto & Co. is a lawsuit from earlier this year. The $25 million lawsuit claims that Charles Schwab plotted to squeeze a business partner out of a real estate development on land owned by the the Suharto family.

Another central piece of evidence “Chuck You” relies upon is a photo, which is undated and uncredited on the site, of Schwab, presumably in Bali given the outfits worn by the young girls in the foreground, standing with his son Michael, Hashim Djojohadikusumo (brother of losing presidential candidate Prabowo Subianto), Hashim’s other brother Maryani Djojohadikusumo, Hashim’s son Aryo Djojohadikusumo, and Suharto’s grandson, Panji Suharto.

Here are “The Facts” given by the site about Schwab’s shady relationship to Suharto

  • By purportedly leveraging relationships with beneficiaries of the Suharto regime, the Schwabs positioned themselves to profit from Indonesia’s land and natural resources.
  • Charles Schwab and the Suharto family purportedly acted as anchor investors in a joint land investment venture known as the Emergent Indonesia Opportunity Fund, with each investing $35 and $30 million, respectively.
  • According to a complaint filed by a Schwab family insider, Schwab purportedly invested in several real estate projects throughout Indonesia in connection with Suharto and affiliates and was involved in a Bali real estate initiative in coordination with Tommy Suharto who has been accused of corruption and ordering the assassination of a federal judge.

Those are some pretty bold claims, especially given the way the “Chuck You” site repeatedly references the Suharto family’s crimes against Indonesia and humanity.

To back up those claims, the site primarily references the lawsuit mentioned above, filed by Los Angeles resident Nicholas Behunin. Behunin, along with Schwab’s son Michael, was a cofounder of the Seathos Foundation an environmental charity and cause célèbre based in California. 

As detailed in a front-page article in the Los Angeles Business Journal from July, Behunin claims he was edged out of a real estate development deal the Seathos Foundation was cooking up in Bali  on land owned by Tommy Suharto but gained by his father through military force.

According to the article, Behunin “had obvious concerns” about Tommy’s 2002 conviction for ordering the assassination of an Indonesian Supreme Court judge. But he was okay with that, because of how ecologically awesome the development was supposed to be.

Leonard Steiner, an attorney representing Behunin, said,“Even a brutal dictator can do environmentally conscious investments. There’s nothing mutually exclusive about those things.”

Behunin claims the Schwabs and the Suharto family cut him out and formed the $65 million Emergent Indonesia Opportunity Fund to pursue the development deal. 

In the article, a spokesman for Charles Schwab said the elder businessman “acknowledged the passive investments in Behunin’s businesses, but denied further involvement. He also denied that the Schwab family had ever partnered with the Suharto family ‘on any kind of investment or development.’”

The maker, or makers, of the “Chuck You” site seem especially angry about the hypocrisy of Schwab’s potential connection to Suharto, given that Schwab is often painted as a generous philanthropist and Suharto is usually painted as a bloody and brutal dictator. A link to the trailer for “The Act of Killing” is included to help solidify Suharto’s villainous credentials. 

The actual evidence for a connection between Schwab and Suharto seems tenuous from what’s on the site, which often repeats or reiterates itself for the sake of adding bullet points. The picture, if real, is somewhat damning but hardly conclusive. As the LA Business Journal article mentions, the real evidence for a connection would be contained in the documentation of Behunin’s case against Schwab.

So who is behind “Chuck You”? It’s not clearly shown anywhere on the site, and a search for the domain name’s owner says that it was purchased by proxy. Our best guess would be Behunin, but since he was ready to make a deal with Tommy Suharto himself, that would be hypocritical to say the least. 



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