Earn Your Leisure has called out Atlanta after five years of hosting Invest Fest in the city. Co-founders Rashad Bilal and Troy Millings didn’t hold back during a Breakfast Club appearance, accusing city officials of providing virtually no support for the three-day financial education event. Now Mayor Andre Dickens is responding, and the tension is spilling into a very public debate about how cities support Black entrepreneurs.
Invest Fest draws tens of thousands of attendees annually and covers finance, business planning, and wealth-building topics through panels featuring industry experts. The event has become a flagship offering for Earn Your Leisure, the educational platform behind podcasts and online courses focused on financial freedom.
During their Breakfast Club interview, Bilal was direct about the frustration. “Atlanta’s done nothing for us,” he said, outlining the kinds of support cities typically provide: billboard space, logistical coordination with venues, police presence, budget assistance, and hotel partnerships. He pushed back on the assumption that Black entrepreneurs should simply figure things out on their own. “I think a lot of times when you’re a Black entrepreneur, a lot of things are just expected. They’re like, ‘Oh, you got it like, you good.’ It’s like if somebody else will come—like a Forbes or somebody like that—they roll out the red carpet.”
Mayor Dickens didn’t name Earn Your Leisure directly, but his response at Hank Stewart’s White Linen Affair left little doubt. “Earlier this week somebody said something on the radio in New York about Atlanta. Somebody was talking about support. You know, people talk a lot,” he said in remarks that quickly circulated online. “The city of Atlanta, we will always look out for ours. This is 25 years. If you support this city, we support you back! So put that on your podcast!”
The exchange caught The Breakfast Club’s Loren LoRosa off guard. She indicated that conversations with the mayor’s office had seemed productive before Dickens’ public response. “I talked to the guys, and they said that it’s unfortunate. He took this approach after we spoke to his team about creating solutions together going forward, but all good,” she said.
Co-host DJ Envy was more pointed in his criticism. “I think what the mayor of Atlanta did was whack. These brothers put on something that’s great for the community. They get tens of thousands of people and they continue to do it. All they asked for was just a little help—like a lot of these other corporations get.”
The tension appears rooted in broken promises. Despite Mayor Dickens speaking at Invest Fest in 2022 and holding a joint press conference at City Hall in 2024 pledging support, nothing materialized. Bilal told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that multiple calls with the mayor’s office yielded no results. “We were under the impression that we were going to do work with the mayor’s office because we met with them and they were enthusiastic. We set up a lot of calls, but nothing came from it. It’s not like we’re just expecting somebody to do something for us. But it’s a little different when it’s communicated that we’re going to help and this is going to be a top priority, and then that leads to nothing.”
The city’s position is that it can’t support every event. William Pate, president and CEO of the Atlanta Convention & Visitors Bureau, told the AJC that Atlanta hosts more than 700 meetings and conventions annually. “Unfortunately, we are not in a position to provide financial support for every meeting,” he said.
Troy Millings later clarified the Breakfast Club comments in a YouTube video, emphasizing that their frustration was directed at city officials, not Atlantans in general. “I think when people heard City of Atlanta come out my mouth, they internalized it as I meant the people of Atlanta. By no means did I mean the people of Atlanta. For sure, we love Atlanta—over 60% of our company lives there.” He noted that conversations with city officials have continued since the radio appearance.
Invest Fest is scheduled for August 7-9 at the Georgia World Congress Center and expects to draw 25,000 attendees per day. Whether Atlanta’s city government and Earn Your Leisure can find common ground remains to be seen, but the public standoff has already raised questions about how municipalities invest in and support Black-led enterprises that generate significant economic activity.
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