Crypto Billionaire Bankman-Fried Confirms He Talked With Musk About Joining Twitter Deal

Topline

Sam Bankman-Fried, the billionaire CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, spoke with the wealthiest man on the planet Elon Musk about joining his $44 billion Twitter acquisition, Bankman-Fried said Thursday at Forbes’ Iconoclast Summit, expressing optimism about Musk’s plan for the social media firm even though Bankman-Fried held off on joining the venture himself.

Sam Bankman-Fried expressed optimism about Elon Musk’s plan for Twitter.

Virgile Simon Bertrand/The Forbes Collection

Key Facts

Bankman-Fried said he ultimately decided to remain on the sidelines because there wasn’t “something I could add to” the takeover, his first public acknowledgment of his involvement in the deal.

“I think there’s a ton of upside in what he’s doing,” Bankman-Fried said about Musk’s sweeping changes to the platform in his week at the helm, adding Musk’s proposed changes—which have included mass layoffs and charging $8 per month for verified badges—should “hopefully really revitalize Twitter.”

Bankman-Fried’s interest in joining the Twitter deal as Musk scrounged together funding was previously revealed in court filings, and Axios reported last month the two billionaires held a phone call before Bankman-Fried balked.

“The court docs were kind of mysteriously missing some documents,” Bankman-Fried said Thursday, a possible reference to the filings including a text from Musk to Bankman-Fried, “Sorry, who is sending this message?”

Crucial Quote

“I’m super excited for his vision, but he’s the one who should be running with that,” Bankman-Fried said about Musk and Twitter.

Forbes Valuations

We estimate Musk to be worth $200.6 billion thanks to his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, each of which he also leads as CEO. Known for a relatively modest lifestyle given his wealth, Bankman-Fried is worth $17.2 billion, the 89th largest fortune in the world, buoyed by his stake in FTX and his Alameda Research trading firm.

Key Background

Musk completed his tumultuous six-month takeover of Twitter last week. He funded the new venture with $12.5 billion in debt financing and more than $30 billion in equity financing, including from Musk’s growing pile of cash as he sold off Tesla shares and from other investors like billionaire venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, crypto exchange Binance, billionaire Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison and Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz, whose existing stake in Twitter was rolled over into Musk’s company. A long-time critic of Twitter’s content moderation policies, Musk tweeted after he officially took control and fired most of Twitter’s top executives, “the bird is freed.”

Tangent

Bankman-Fried would not rule out a potential FTX acquisition of fellow crypto exchange Coinbase on Thursday. FTX entered an agreement to buy embattled crypto firm BlockFi in July and its $1.4 billion bid for bankrupt crypto firm Voyager Digital’s digital assets was accepted in September.

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