Sam Bankman-Fried Gave Millions To Rich Friends, Tried To Pay Donald Trump Not To Run For President

Being a billionaire will make you a lot of friends in high places — athletes, celebrities, politicians, you name it. And as it turns out, crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried had plenty of them on his payroll.

There's a new book about Bankman-Fried coming out this week. So the author, Michael Lewis, appeared on 60 Minutes over the weekend to spill the beans on "the rise and fall" of the super fraudster and his FTX empire.

I'll admit, this whole SBF scandal (and cryptocurrency, in general) was a little lost on me in the beginning. The concept of imaginary internet money is confusing, and — like Michael Scott — I needed someone to "explain it to me like I'm 5."

So in case you're in the same boat, I'm going to do exactly that. If you're up to speed on the saga, feel free to skip to the next section.

How It All Started For Sam Bankman-Fried

A graduate of MIT, SBF is a gifted numbers guy. He worked as a Wall Street trader before moving to Berkeley at age 25 to start his own trading firm, Alameda Research. Instead of stocks and bonds, he traded digital currency. According to Lewis, Bankman-Fried wanted to become "the smartest person in the crypto markets."

So he came up with the idea of opening his own cryptocurrency exchange, FTX. In other words, he's not just gambling in the casino. He now owns the casino.

He was on a mission to make as much money as possible, and it worked. In a span of just 18 months, SBF went from having nothing to having $22.5 billion dollars. He was the richest person in the world under 30.

And he was on track to become the world's first trillionaire.

(Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

But unlike most people with that sort of money, Bankman-Fried supposedly wasn't interested in buying yachts, sports cars and mansions. No, he was going to use his money to save humanity! He pledged billions to causes like artificial intelligence, space governance, combatting biohazards and climate change — all in the name of "effective altruism." Material possessions didn't matter to him.

Allegedly.

Because aside from the fact that he continued to dress like a young John Fetterman, his lavish lifestyle and $30 million Bahamas penthouse suggested he wasn't quite the Robin Hood figure he claimed to be. Plus, there was his slew of celebrity endorsers.

"The beautiful people suddenly found him irresistible," according to 60 Minutes.

Meet SBF's Celebrity Friends

The FTX Foundation claims to have donated $190 million to nonprofits, academics, institutes and think tanks who were going to help SBF save the world. Several of those nonprofits say they never got the money.

But we do know who did get plenty of money from FTX. So let's take a look at some of those beneficiaries:

Tom Brady — Bankman-Fried paid Tom Brady $55 million for 20 hours a year for three years, according to Lewis. And Brady, he said, "adored him." Yes, one of the most successful athletes of all time (who has millions of dollars by his own right) somehow adored that disgraced, tangly-haired super nerd.

"I think Tom Brady thought he was just a really interesting person," Lewis said. "I think he liked to hear what he had to say."

And when it all came crashing down, Lewis said TB12 was "crushed."

Steph Curry — SBF reportedly paid the Golden State Warriors star $35 million for the same amount of work as Tom Brady.

Larry David — FTX paid the comedian $10 million to appear in a Super Bowl commercial — on top of the $25 million it cost to produce the ad.

FTX Arena — The crypto trading platform paid a whopping $135 million for the naming rights to the Miami Heat's arena.

(Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Bankman-Fried has also been tied to Shaquille O'Neal, Trevor Lawrence, Naomi Osaka, and several others. And he almost cut a $100 million deal to sponsor Taylor Swift's tour.

Not sure how any of those hefty celebrity investments full under the banner of "effective altruism." Sounds like he's just making rich people richer — until they all got slapped with a class-action lawsuit. But then came the real doozy.

The Effort To Stop Donald Trump

Sam Bankman-Fried was one of Joe Biden's biggest donors in 2020. He saw Donald Trump as a threat to democracy and, therefore, a threat to humanity.

So in 2022, he met with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to devise a plan to beat Trump. And in addition to shelling out bags of money to Democrats, SBF also agreed to give millions in support of Republican candidates who weren't in cahoots with Trump.

The "people who are not hostile to democracy," according to Lewis.

(Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

And as the 2024 Election loomed closer, Bankman-Fried decided to take his anti-Trump actions even further: He wanted to know how much money it would take to convince Donald Trump not to run.

And, supposedly, he got an answer: $5 billion. While neither Lewis nor SBF were sure that number came from the former President himself or a member of his camp, Sam was ready to do it.

That is, until, everything came crashing down.

The End of FTX

Turns out if you own the casino, you can't still gamble in the casino. And that's exactly what Sammy was doing.

His own firm, Alameda Research, was trading on the FTX platform — a platform that was gushing $1 billion a day. So when investors wanted their money, it simply wasn't there.

There was, however, a mysterious extra $8 billion in Alameda Research. But SBF claims he had no idea.

"You have to understand that when it went in there, it was a rounding error, that it felt like we had infinity dollars in there, that I wasn't even thinking about it," he said, per Lewis.

I hate it when I accidentally round up by 8 billion.

(Photo by ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

Anyone with a brain knows this wasn't an honest mistake. An honest mistake is realizing you're still paying for HBO Max months after you signed up for the free trial to watch one movie. Sam Bankman-Fried is a deliberate fraudster who pulled the wool over everyone's eyes in the name of "saving humanity."

But now he can't even save himself. As we speak, the 31 year old sits in jail awaiting trial. If found guilty, he faces more than 100 years in federal prison.

His celebrity friends aren't coming to help. He didn't save the world. And Donald Trump is still running for president.

Congratulations, smart guy. You accomplished nothing.