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Sam Bankman-Fried Won’t Spend $1 Billion on Political Donations Despite Old Quotes

  • Sam Bankman-Fried previously said he would donate $1 billion to stop Donald Trump from winning the 2024 elections should he decide to contest.
  • SBF has backed several political campaigns. But his support has mostly been for Democrats.

Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX CEO and crypto billionaire, has built a reputation as somewhat of a “crypto saviour,” having rescued several firms at the brink of bankruptcy. In May, the crypto developer announced plans to expand his philanthropy to the political arena, noting that he would donate more than $1 billion in campaigns leading up to the 2024 elections.

However, with midterm elections just a month away, Sam seems to have grown cold feet on his bold claims and recently remarked that his old statement “was a dumb quote on my part.” The 30-year-old billionaire added that his message was “sort of sloppy and inconsistent in some cases.” Sam made his recent comments during an appearance on Politico’s Morning Money podcast.

The MIT graduate isn’t new to political donations. According to reports, the FTX boss has spent over $40 million on super PACs and political donations, the bulk of which has gone to Democrats. However, these figures are miles away from his famous promise of a billion.

Sam’s latest statement would come as bad news for Democrat leaders who have been fretting about their depleting coffers as they try to defeat the Republicans in November.

With elections edging closer, Sam noted that spending his fortune would not significantly improve his policy priorities. The billionaire has also been an outspoken supporter of new regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges and pandemic preparedness.

Sam’s decision to cool off on political donations came as a surprise to his followers. The crypto billionaire has previously identified politics as the only way to advance his policies on pandemic preparedness and crypto regulation. Sam also added that FTX would be abstaining from any political donations for the time being.

Expressing his thoughts on the forthcoming elections, the FTX founder said,

I think primaries are more important. Frankly, I could try and talk about pandemic preparedness in a general election. But most voters are gonna say, ‘That’s cool, but like, I’m a Democrat’ or ‘I’m a Republican.’ That’s not going to move the needle enough for me to go over all of the other issues.

Sam and a couple of FTX executives have used the super PACs to back winning candidates in the primaries. However, the group has also experienced huge losses in some of the contests in which they were active.

“At some point, when you’ve given your message to voters, there’s just not a whole lot more you can do. You can spend more time on it, and more messaging, more money, more anything else, [but] you’re not accomplishing anything more,” Sam said in the podcast.

 Bankman-Fried made headlines last month when he claimed he still had $1 billion allocated for purchases and bailouts of the crypto market. Sam seems to have more experience controlling the slow crypto market than attempting to influence political matters.

Lawrence Woriji Verified

Lawrence has covered some exciting stories in his career as a journalist, he finds blockchain-related stories very intriguing. He believes Web3 will change the world and wants everyone to be a part of it.

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