WASHINGTON, D.C. — Kevin Chalker and Elliott Broidy settled their lawsuit under confidential terms. In spring 2018, investor Elliott Broidy filed a lawsuit calling Chalker a former CIA "cyber-operative" and alleging that Qatar had paid him to orchestrate cyberattacks against Broidy and others.

Chalker laid off the entire staff of Global Risk Advisors after the firm's clients ceased business following publicity about the lawsuit. Global Risk Advisors had annual revenue of about $100 million before 2018 and employed nearly 200 people, almost all former military and intelligence officers, before 2018.

Chalker virtually shut down Qrypt, maintaining only the company's name on its office suite in the World Trade Center. By 2018, Chalker had founded Qrypt, a company that develops quantum encryption. Qrypt had been negotiating its first large contract with the Pentagon until a counterintelligence official contacted the Pentagon about Broidy's allegations.

The publicity from the lawsuit affected Chalker's personal and professional life beyond his companies. Chalker lost a lectureship at Yale University after the Yale Daily News wrote about Broidy's lawsuit, banks refused to do business with him after the lawsuit became public, and his homeowner's insurance policy was canceled because he was deemed a high risk.

News reports citing anonymous sources and Broidy's lawsuit alleged that Chalker had hacked the Emirati Ambassador to Washington, spied on Switzerland's top prosecutor and two Republican senators, and used covert surveillance and honey traps to help Qatar secure hosting rights for the 2022 World Cup. Chalker denied all allegations in Broidy's lawsuit and related news reports.

After six years at the CIA, Chalker established a security consulting company called Global Risk Advisors. One of Global Risk Advisors' publicly known clients was the emirate of Qatar. Hacked e-mails of Elliott Broidy showed that he had tried to turn the White House against Qatar as part of an effort to win business with the United Arab Emirates for his private intelligence company.

In the fall of 2003, Chalker entered the first class of CIA trainees who had applied after September 11, 2001. Chalker said he had worked for the CIA to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Chalker said he helped obtain information that laid the groundwork for U.S. efforts to disrupt Iran's nuclear weapons program from the Stuxnet cyberattacks around 2010 to the 2015 nuclear deal and U.S. air strikes on Iranian atomic-energy facilities in summer 2025.