Sam Bankman-Fried Revises Plans to Fund Political Campaigns

The CEO of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried called his remarks about being willing to spend up to $1 billion on the 2024 U.S. presidential elections “foolish.” He said so in an interview Politico.

In May, Bankman-Fried said that he planned to donate “more than $100 million” during the entire election cycle. After a request to indicate a cap on potential spending, the top executive indicated $1 billion.

“At some point, once you have delivered your message to voters, you simply won’t be able to do anything more. You may spend more time, messages, money, and everything else on it, but you won’t achieve anything else,” he explained.

This year Bankman-Fried spent almost $40 million, most of which went to the Democratic Party of the United States and its candidates.

In 2020, the head of FTX donated $5.22 million to Joe Biden’s campaign fund, placing him among his largest sponsors.

Earlier, TIME magazine included Bankman-Fried in the 100 most influential people of 2022.

In September he hinted at a willingness to allocate “approximately one billion dollars” to cryptocurrency companies and projects.

Over the summer, firms connected with him directed a similar sum to support the industry. Previously, the head of FTX promised to spend “billions” on acquiring stakes in other companies.

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