San Francisco tech prankster leaks Spotify playlists of politicians, CEOs

(KRON) — As Vice President of the United States, JD Vance is often traveling from city to city, from one important meeting to another. Marc Benioff, who is CEO of the San Francisco-based Salesforce but resides in Hawaii, spends some time traveling as well.

Ever wonder what public figures like Vance or Benioff are listening to during those long flights?

Well, one San Francisco “tech bro,” 23-year-old software engineer Riley Walz, found the answer to that question. According to The New York Times, Walz created The Panama Playlists, a website that shows several public figures’ Spotify playlists.

Don’t be surprised if Vance is listening to Justin Bieber on a plane to or from Washington, D.C.

According to The Panama Playlists, Vance has a playlist named “Making Dinner” with songs like “One Time” by Bieber and “I Want It That Way” by the Backstreet Boys. Benoiff’s playlist includes Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face,” Katy Perry’s “California Gurls” and the Bruno Mars-featured “Billionaire.”

Notable discoveries on The Panama Playlists

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

• Miley Cyrus: “Party in the U.S.A.”
• Rascal Flatts: “Life Is a Highway”

San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie

• Avicii: “Wake Me Up”
• Coldplay: “Fix You”

Late Night Host Seth Meyers

• Jackson Browne: “The Fuse”
• Rickie Lee Jones: “Chuck E’s In Love”

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman

• David Guetta, OneRepublic: “I Don’t Wanna Wait”
• Missy Elliott: “Get Ur Freak On”

Other Spotify accounts featured on the site include U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Minority Leader of the U.S. House of Representatives Hakeem Jeffries and Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi. The full list can be viewed here.

Walz said he has been tracking these public figures’ Spotify accounts for more than a year. The San Francisco resident did write a disclaimer about the accuracy of The Panama Playlists, saying that “I could say with near-certainty: yep, this is that person.”

“I found the real Spotify accounts of celebrities, politicians, and journalists. Many use their real names. With a little investigating, I could say with near-certainty: yep, this is that person,” Walz wrote on The Panma Playlists’ website. “I’ve been scraping their playlists for over a year. Some individuals even have a setting enabled that displays their last played song. I scraped this continuously, so I know what songs they played, how many times, and when.”

According to the NYT, Walz is also behind several antics in San Francisco.

The newspaper reported that Walz is behind last year’s fake sign prank in Union Square, mocking then-California retail theft law. Walz, the Times reports, posed as a reporter to sneak into a City Hall gala event for the APEC Summit in 2023,

Walz was the mastermind behind the website LooksMapping, which uses AI to rank San Francisco restaurants based on how “hot” their patrons are.