1. Ron Watkins has played a major role in spreading the discredited far-right QAnon conspiracy theory, and has espoused conspiracy theories that widespread election fraud led to Joe Biden's victory over Donald Trump in the 2020 US presidential election.
Ron Watkins is the son of Jim Watkins, the owner and operator of 8kun.
Ron Watkins served as site administrator for 8kun from 2016 until he announced he had resigned in November 2020, though some have questioned the legitimacy of his resignation.
Ron Watkins's father, Jim Watkins, is a former member of the United States Army, and Watkins grew up moving often because of his father's military service.
Ron Watkins spent his high school years in Mukilteo, Washington, the city where he lived for the longest period during his childhood.
Ron Watkins attended Kamiak High School, where he was active in choir and theater, and graduated in 2005.
In 2014, after seeing an Al Jazeera America documentary about 8kun creator Fredrick Brennan, Ron Watkins told his father about Brennan.
The elder Ron Watkins contacted Brennan to offer a partnership, and in 2014, Brennan moved to Manila in the Philippines to work for him.
In 2014, Jim Ron Watkins became the official owner and operator of 8kun.
Brennan remained the site administrator until 2016, at which time he relinquished the role and Ron Watkins took up the position.
Ron Watkins was responsible for the creation of a cryptocurrency through which 8kun posters can pay to have their posts listed prominently through a program called "King of the Shekel".
On November 3,2020, the day of the United States presidential election, Ron Watkins announced on Twitter that he was resigning his position as site administrator.
Ron Watkins told journalists he wanted to spend more time woodworking and writing a book about constitutional law.
Ron Watkins's resignation was described as "abrupt", and fed doubts among some QAnon adherents about the movement.
Ron Watkins has played a major role in helping to amplify the theory.
Ron Watkins has been described as a de facto QAnon leader.
In September 2020, Brennan theorized that the original "Q" was a South African 4chan poster called Paul Furber, and that once Q moved to 8chan, Ron Watkins used his login privileges as the forum's administrator to take control of the account.
On February 19,2022, The New York Times reported that linguistic analysis of the Q posts by two forensic linguistic teams indicated that Paul Furber was the main author of the initial Q posts, and Ron Watkins took over in 2018.
Ron Watkins again denied being Q, and published on Telegram a sonnet rebutting the claims.
Ron Watkins spread conspiracy theories about Dominion Voting Systems, the creators of some voting machines used in the election.
Ron Watkins posted videos on Twitter of a Dominion employee using one of the machines, falsely stating that the employee was pictured tampering with election results.
Ron Watkins was named as an expert witness in a lawsuit filed by Sidney Powell, a lawyer and conspiracy theorist involved in challenging the election results.
Ron Watkins was interviewed multiple times about Dominion on the pro-Trump One America News Network, which introduced him as a "large system technical analyst".
Ron Watkins earned a large following on Twitter following the election, where he used the name "CodeMonkeyZ".
On Twitter, Ron Watkins announced plans to "drop" information he called "The Mother of All [truth] Bombs".
However, on January 10,2023, Ron Watkins' account was reinstated following the acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk.
Amid the Maricopa county election audit, Ron Watkins falsely alleged that 200,000 Trump votes went uncounted.
In October 2021, Ron Watkins filed a statement of interest with the Arizona Secretary of State to run for the United States House of Representatives in Arizona's 1st congressional district as a Republican.
Ron Watkins officially announced his run for Congress with a video in which he called Democratic incumbent Tom O'Halleran the "dirtiest Democrat in the DC swamp".
Ron Watkins campaigned mostly through Telegram; he hired conspiracy theorist podcaster Tony Teora as a campaign manager and associated with a local sovereign citizen activist.
In February 2022, it was reported that Ron Watkins' campaign had raised just above $33,000, some of which was in the form of a loan from his father.
Ron Watkins entered into polemics with Arizona senator Wendy Rogers, whom he accused of botching the Maricopa County election audit.
Ron Watkins later said she would enact a "ceasefire" with Watkins.
Ron Watkins lived with his father in Manila in the Philippines in the 2010s.