The News
Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange service FTX, revealed in a new interview that he donated “about the same amount of money” to both Democrats and Republicans, but that all his donations to Republicans was “dark money.”
Bankman-Fried claimed he used a loophole in the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling. “All my Republic donations were dark,” he said, adding that he didn’t disclose them because “liberal” reporters would “freak the fuck out.”
“I’ve been their third biggest Republican donor this year as well,” he told Tiffany Fong in an interview released by YouTuber Coffeezilla on Tuesday.
(Bankman-Fried is also an investor in Semafor.)
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Before FTX’s collapse, Bankman-Fried was the Democrats’ second-biggest contributor, donating about $40 million to Democratic politicians and political action committees during the last election cycle, according to Fortune Magazine.
It was later revealed that he had donated at least $1 million to Senate Republicans just 15 days before his crypto empire filed for bankruptcy.
The “dark money” loophole from the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United vs. FEC allows donors to contribute to political campaigns without publicly disclosing that information.
Step Back
Starting early November, FTX entered a liquidity crisis after it was revealed that Alameda, a crypto trading firm also owned by Bankman-Fried, held a significant amount of FTX’s exchange token, FTT.
Binance -- a competing exchange service and prior investor in FTX -- subsequently announced it would be selling its FTT, triggering a crash in FTT’s value and massive withdrawals from FTX. Soon, FTX filed for bankruptcy and Bankman-Fried resigned.
He has since apologized for miscalculating the amount of liquid assets the exchange had available for customer withdrawals. Bankman-Fried has so far not been charged with any crime, but several Republicans and Democrats have said they plan on using Congressional powers to investigate FTX’s financial dealings.