What JD Vance, Pam Bondi, and Sam Altman Can’t Stop Listening to, According to the ‘Panama Playlists’

From JD Vance’s dinnertime Bieber to Sam Altman’s Shazaming of incredibly popular hit songs, a website claiming to have published the Spotify listening habits of members of the Trump administration, tech leaders, and journalists is making the rounds.

“We’ve been scraping their accounts since summer 2024. Playlists, live listening feed, everything. We know what songs they played, when, and how many times,” the Panama Playlists site reads, alleging, “With a little sleuthing, I could say with near-certainty: Yep, this is them.”

Are all of the accounts real? At this point, it’s hard to tell. The accounts listed have not been independently verified by WIRED. Reporter Mike Isaac from The New York Times tells WIRED that the songs listed on the website under his name match his real Spotify listening history. Five of the Spotify listeners from the website confirmed to The Verge the accuracy of their posted data. So, I’ve spent all morning obsessively listening to every song on the Panama Playlists, enjoying a voyeuristic look into the listening habits of powerful people.

Representatives of the public figures whose playlists were featured did not respond to immediate requests for comment.

Vance’s potential cooking playlist, which had been reported on before this drop, has Justin Bieber’s “One Time” and the Backstreet Boys’ “I Want It That Way” in rotation. The Panama Playlists also claim US attorney general Pam Bondi jams out to Nelly’s “Hot in Herre” and Foreigner’s “Cold as Ice,” (the latter sounds like a mad lib for the administration’s current immigration policy), Florida governor Ron DeSantis allegedly streams Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA”, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt appears to enjoy some Cyndi Lauper with “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” (I mean, some of them also want reproductive rights, too).

Even gay Republicans couldn’t resist the gravitational pull of Brat summer, it seems, with nominee for US undersecretary of state for economic growth, energy, and the environment Jacob Helberg listening to Charli XCX’s “Apple” over 50 times in the past year. If the lists are accurate, Helberg could soon become the member of the Trump administration most on the gay-pop train. Chappell Roan’s “Femininomenon” and Addison Rae’s “Diet Pepsi” clock in as his next top two most-listened songs, according to the Panama Playlists. I wonder how Helberg’s potential boss would feel about him being a Chappell-head, especially considering the artist said “fuck Trump” last year.

The songs Silicon Valley tech leaders allegedly have on repeat are especially unhinged. The public Spotify account seemingly linked to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, which appears to follow playlists from one of Altman’s longtime friends, contains multiple Shazam playlists of identified tracks, from Dixon Dallas’ “Good Lookin’,” a gay parody of country music, to Missy Elliott’s “Get Ur Freak On.” Elliott’s ubiquitous hit is mainly just the lyrics “get ur freak on” repeated over and over, making it particularly ironic to Shazam. Additional songs that Altman appears to have Shazamed include: “Pumped Up Kicks,” by Foster the People, “Liability,” by Lorde, “The A Team,” by Ed Sheeran, “Fly,” by Nicki Minaj, and “Make You Feel My Love,” by Adele.

Palmer Luckey, cofounder of defense company Anduril and a controversial figure in Silicon Valley, confirmed on X that he curated a number of mid-2000s bangers for his “Best Music Ever” list, created about a decade ago; Kelly Clarkson’s “Since U Been Gone,” Hilary Duff’s “So Yesterday,” and Avril Lavigne’s “Sk8er Boi” were all part of his Spotify listening habits. Hate to say it, but these are, in fact, certified bops.

What song did newly appointed Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang allegedly listen to after the deal with Scale AI, his startup, closed? The Panama Playlists claim that it was “Stubborn Love” by the Lumineers. Not necessarily the celebration song I would have picked. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen appears to have both Go the Fuck to Sleep (probably where I would slot in the Lumineers) and Focus Alpha playlists. San Francisco mayor Daniel Lurie’s alleged list of songs for working out on a Peloton bike include Donald Glover’s “This Is America,” about racism and gun violence, and the Rolling Stones’ “Gimme Shelter.”

Is it crucial to know exactly what songs JD Vance might be listening to? Yes and no. While this is a seemingly trivial look into what’s going on inside his headphones, the Panama Playlists purport to be a stunning example of the porous nature of online data. The website serves as a critical reminder that your digital footprint could be more public and trackable than you typically realize. Similar to when Vance’s Venmo account was left public, apps designed for consumers sweep up the data of everyone, even the most powerful people in the US. For Spotify users, any playlist you make is public by default, and this has to be manually turned off in the settings.

And if you’ll hold on for just a second, I have a couple default settings on my Spotify account that I need to change real quick—can’t let my continued obsession with the Twilight movie soundtrack get out.