At six foot six and nearly three hundred pounds, with shoulders that barely fit inside an XXL suit jacket, Travis Miller is a hulking wall of a man. He claims to be a “big teddy bear” with a knack for putting even small children at ease, but there is no doubt that he more often exudes intimidation. This came in handy on the football field: Miller nearly made the NFL and then played in the Arena Football League and overseas. But giving off an air of menace, it just so happens, is an even greater asset in his current line of work.
Most would identify Miller as a bodyguard, but within the small fraternity of high-priced chaperones who shepherd the rich and famous around the country, forming the final barrier between America’s nobility and her toiling masses, he is known as something else: an executive protection agent. A resident of Frisco since 2015, when he was invited to the Dallas Cowboys rookie camp during his playing days, Miller has protected dozens of high-profile and high–net worth individuals (HNWIs, in industry speak). He’s defended comedian Dave Chappelle and business guru Grant Cardone, as well as star NFL linebacker Von Miller (no relation). His most challenging assignment, he says, was Stephanie Clifford, a.k.a. Stormy Daniels, the onetime porn star whose affair and hush money arrangement with Donald Trump eventually led to the once and future president being convicted of 34 felonies earlier this year.
Given his years of experience protecting high-profile clients, Miller was shocked when he glimpsed a video showing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson being gunned down in Midtown Manhattan earlier this month. Thompson struck him as an obvious political target: He ran a company that operates in an industry that is widely unpopular. What shocked Miller and many others who guard powerful figures for a living was the fact that Thompson––the head of a company that raked in $281 billion in revenue last year––was walking the streets without professional protection. “My first thought was, ‘That’s horrific—I feel terrible for his family,’ ” Miller told me recently. “The second thought was, ‘Where was the spotter, where was the driver, where was the ghost agent, as we call them––the individual stationed outside in plain clothes who can watch out for threats?’ Once I realized he had no security, I just thought, ‘How is that even possible?’ ”
In the wake of Thompson’s murder, as Wanted posters depicting the names and faces of other health insurance company CEOs have appeared in Manhattan, some experts are warning that corporate America should prepare for copycat killers. Despite the threat, one estimate suggests that fewer than one quarter of Fortune 500 companies provide personal security services to senior executives. Those that do tend to see executive protection as a long-term investment, a way to minimize the risk of unexpectedly losing a leader. “A CEO drives the company—they’re the visionary,” said Forrest Hise, the director of business development at 1st Veterans Security, which offers executive protection to a number of businesses and HNWIs in Houston. “If you have a really good CEO and you have to find a replacement, you don’t know if they’re going to be as good, and we saw that reflected in UnitedHealthcare Group’s stock price taking a tumble this month.” (Since the murder, committed on December 4, the company’s stock price has fallen by around 20 percent.)
In Texas, which was home to 52 Fortune 500 companies in June—the second most in the country, behind California—a unique dynamic is at play. Many executives here run companies in the energy, health-care, and insurance sectors—ones often blamed for societal ills. At the same time, Texas is home to more registered guns than any other state in the country. The combination of big business and big weaponry goes a long way toward explaining why many take advantage of executive protection here, especially in the major financial and energy centers of Dallas and Houston.
Though none of the six major companies we reached out to opted to comment on whether their executive leaders are professionally protected, several elite bodyguards said Thompson’s killing had sparked a new wave of interest in their services. “There’s been an influx of phone calls to myself and other agents in the industry over the last week,” Miller said. “I think there were a lot of companies who were on the fence about security before, but ever since the shooting, they’re like, ‘Okay, guys, now we gotta get security!’ ” Another bodyguard in Dallas, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity in order to not upset prospective clients, said he’d even received a call from a prominent pastor who is worried about his safety. “You gotta realize, in a city like Dallas or Houston, these well-known ministers are essentially running multimillion-dollar companies as well,” the bodyguard said.
The cost of executive protection varies widely. Oracle, the multinational technology company headquartered in Austin (though it will relocate to Nashville by 2030), spends more than $200,000 to protect CEO Safra Catz. Company founder Larry Ellison’s security costs are nearly $3 million—just for his primary residence, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. That’s more than the price to protect Elon Musk, likely Texas’s most controversial business leader and cultural figure. Musk reportedly relies on an as-many-as-twenty-person security team known as “Voyager” to keep him safe––an effort that costs $2.4 million each year, the Chronicle reported. At a shareholder meeting this summer, Musk, who has placed the headquarters of Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company between Austin and Bastrop, claimed that two “homicidal maniacs” tried to kill him in recent months.
At 1st Veterans Security, “personal protection officers,” or PPOs, as the company calls them, are typically drawn from elite military ranks and law enforcement. Wearing plain clothes, with tactical driving skills and medical trauma training, they specialize in low-profile “close protection” of corporate HNWIs and their family members––a service for which clients can expect to pay between $200 and $500 per hour, with a certain minimum hour requirement. Hise says some companies mandate security for their entire C-suites, while “middle-sized” companies often spend only to protect top leadership.
Though Thompson’s slaying may have shifted how companies perceive threats, it isn’t the sole reason many have recently added executive security to their budgets. The rise of social media has facilitated stalking. COVID also left a deep wound on the American psyche, according to Hise, one that has left some depressed and others full of rage. Now that face masks, like the one worn by Thompson’s killer, are more commonplace, it’s harder than ever to assess a potential threat in person. “There are new types of crime emerging all the time,” he added. “Fifty years ago, you didn’t have to worry about cybersecurity and data breaches, but now you do. There are more and more malicious ways to interfere with a company or to jeopardize the leadership of a company than there were in the past.”
The endless variety of ways to cause harm is why Cleo Jackson Jr., an executive bodyguard in Dallas, plays the “what-if” game for a living. Though he’s a laid-back family man with a beaming smile outside of work, Jackson––the chief strategy officer of Strategic Intelligence Group, a Dallas-area security company––is a cold, calculating realist when he’s assessing risk. He’s worked with spouses who’ve been threatened while going through expensive divorces, and with high-powered lawyers afraid to leave the house after they’ve been blamed for a client being sent to prison. “If it can happen, it will happen,” he told me with unmistakable certainty when I reached him by phone this week. “If my imagination can come up with it, then it’s a realistic threat.”
Though his social media feeds are sprinkled with photos of him holding large weapons and hanging out at gun ranges, Jackson is proud of the fact that he’s never been involved in an incident that required deadly force—a testament, he tells people, to his ability to thoroughly assess risk. In Jackson’s estimation, many corporate leaders “don’t believe something bad could happen to them. Some of them could be frugal, or it could be naivete.”
He advises corporate clients to pay extra for bodyguards with more training and experience. You want someone with some “battle scars,” he tells them. He noted that for those who can’t afford to hire a bodyguard, Texas is a great place to be: It’s easy to arm yourself here. “Stay dangerous,” he snarled moments later, hanging up the phone.
