Sam Bankman-Fried co-founded FTX in 2019 and is its CEO. Photo FTX
Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to offer former President Donald Trump $5 billion not to seek reelection in 2024. This is just one of the many bizarre revelations made in the new Michael Lewis SBF book “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.” At least Bankman-Fried thought about doing that before he went broke and got arrested.
Michael Lewis in a 60 Minutes interview when asked why it did not happen answered, “Well, they were still having these conversations when FTX blew up. So why didn’t it happen? He didn’t have $5 billion anymore.”
Lewis also explained that Sam Bankman-Fried was actually concerned about the legality of such a move and that it was Donald Trump himself who suggested the move.
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But the most surprising revelation has to be that, according to Lewis, Sam Bankan-Fried is not some sociopath incapable of empathy like other recent wunderkinds who defrauded people and went to jail such as Elizabeth Holmes. Just the opposite. He is a firm believer in altruism and wanted to acquire wealth so that it could be used to help others.
“What it means in Sam’s instance is you can go out and have a career where you do good,” Michael Lewis told 60 Minutes. “You can go be a doctor in Africa. Or you can go out and make as much money as possible and pay people to be doctors in Africa. If you’re a doctor in Africa, you get– you end up saving a certain number of lives, but you’re only one doctor. But if you can pay 40 people to become doctors in Africa, you’re gonna s– you’re gonna save 40 m– 40 times the number of lives.”
Sam Bankman-Fried’s trial begins in New York on Tuesday. People would love to see Sam Bankman-Fried testify on his own behalf but the experts say he should not. However, Daniel Richman, a law professor at Columbia University, told the New York Times, ““It will surely be painful for him to remain quiet if he believes or convinces himself that the government is mischaracterizing his transactions and his closest associates are making up stories about him.”
Sam Bankman-Fried stands accused of seven counts of fraud, embezzlement of billions of dollars and conspiracy. If convicted on all counts, he could be sentenced to as much as 115 years in jail. The charges came after his FTX cryptocurrency exchange company went bust a few weeks ago. The big question over the fall of FTX is “what happened to all of the money that people left with the company?” FTX was a crypto bank, so to speak, a place where people could park their virtual assets. But unlike with banks, there is no regulation over the handling of cryptos and FTX is said to have moved people’s cryptos around, basically that the company spent their money.
Based in the Bahamas, FTX was a cryptocurrency exchange that said it was built by traders, for traders. FTX offers industry-first derivatives, options, volatility products and leveraged tokens. FTX had more than one million traders using its services when it failed.
