Skeptical Twitter Users Say SBF’s Proposed USD 1B Campaign Donation Is an ‘Investment’ Strategy

 

Twitter users say they believe that the FTX crypto exchange’s multi-billionaire owner Sam Bankman-Fried’s plans to spend some USD 1 billion or more to fund the US Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential election campaign is a “calculated investment.”

Bankman-Fried said on a recent episode of a Pushkin Industries podcast hosted by Jacob Goldstein that he expected to donate “north of USD 100 million” to political recipients in the next presidential election. But he added that his “soft ceiling” of spending would be a whopping USD 1 billion – with the size of his donation expected to be higher should former President Donald Trump make another bid for the White House.

On Twitter, the Terra Research Forum researcher Fat Man wrote that it would likely benefit the FTX chief to “spend USD 1 billion to have the leader of the free world” on his “side” – “assisting” Bankman-Fried in “fostering a retail-friendly and accessible crypto environment.”

Should Bankman-Fried, whose personal wealth has been estimated at some USD 20 billion, come good on his promises – and should Trump run in 2024 – the FTX chief would become the biggest-ever political donor to an American election.

Others were yet more skeptical of Bankman-Fried’s true intentions – and urged the crypto community to “stop simping for crypto billionaires.”

SBF isn't planning to donate $1bil+ to political parties because he has your best interests at heart anon

He will use you as exit liquidity to make that money back and then keep dumping on you to make himself richer

Stop simping for crypto billionaires

— sassal.eth/acc 🦇🔊 (@sassal0x) May 25, 2022

On the podcast, Bankman-Fried said that USD 1bn was “a decent thing to look at as a […] hard ceiling,” because who knows what’s going to happen between now and then, but called the figure “at least as a soft ceiling.”

Investor Lark Davis (aka The Crypto Lark), meanwhile, quipped that with money like this, the FTX boss could buy the “whole” of “Congress.”

Another Twitter user claimed that Bankman-Fried was on the verge of pulling off “the oldest trick in the world” – and that “doors” would be “opened” for the crypto exchange chief with a donation of this size.

Earlier, Bankman-Fried was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by the magazine Time, which wrote:

“Few have had a bigger impact on cryptocurrency’s ascendance in mainstream culture over the past two years than Sam Bankman-Fried.”

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