Cambridge Analytica ex-chief’s answers fuel further questions

Three hours into an interrogation by British lawmakers, Cambridge Analytica’s former chief executive Alexander Nix stood up and thrust a slide deck at Members of Parliament: “I’ve tried,” he said, “to take what is ostensibly quite a complex structure and simplify it.” His four slides told a straightforward story about the analytics company, which shot to prominence after it was found to have used data from millions of Facebook users in political campaigns. The presentation showed one business, Strategic Communications Laboratories, splitting into two in 2012, setting up a US entity after 2014 and then coming back together under the brand names SCL Group and Cambridge Analytica over the past year. The reality, according to bankruptcy filings and company accounts, is much more complicated — and controversial. As a web of businesses related to Cambridge Analytica has been wound up over the past month, former employees and people close to the company have raised questions about where money has gone, why employees have not been paid and what influence was held by investors including hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer.