Topline
Billionaire turned alleged felon Sam Bankman-Fried faced a fresh set of bizarre claims this week related to the shocking collapse of his crypto empire closely intertwined with his interpersonal relationships, including a revelation about his family’s supposed plans for an apocalyptic event.
Sam Bankman-Fried’s younger brother allegedly wanted to buy the island nation of Naura as a utopia … [+]
Key Facts
A lawsuit filed Thursday by FTX against Bankman-Fried and his close associates looking to recover more than $1 billion alleged that Gabriel Bankman-Fried, the younger brother of FTX’s founder, sought to use FTX funds for a proposal far afield from crypto: buying a sovereign nation.
Citing recovered internal communications between the younger Bankman-Fried and an executive at FTX’s philanthropy arm, FTX lawyers allege that Gabriel Bankman-Fried outlined a plan to buy Nauru, an independent country in the Pacific Ocean with a population of about 13,000.
The younger Bankman-Fried allegedly said he wanted to build a “bunker/shelter” on Nauru in the event of “some event where 50%-99.99% of people die” to “ensure” the survival of “most” subscribers to the effective altruism ideology recently made famous by his older brother.
Gabriel Bankman-Fried allegedly said he wanted to “build a lab . . . for human genetic enhancement” in Nauru, noting there are “probably” other “useful” aspects to owning an entire country, too.
Key Background
A 2017 graduate of Brown University and veteran Capitol Hill staffer, Gabe Bankman-Fried is three years younger than Sam and, unlike his older brother, does not face any criminal charges related to FTX and Alameda Research’s unraveling late last year. A trial against the elder Bankman-Fried for eight federal counts, largely focused on the alleged misappropriation of billions of dollars worth of customer funds in FTX’s crypto exchange, will begin in October. Sam Bankman-Fried is awaiting trial in the brothers’ childhood home near Stanford University, where their parents Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried had long worked as law professors.
Tangent
In a separate Thursday court filing, federal prosecutors accused Bankman-Fried of illegally feeding information to the New York Times for a Thursday article on his ex-girlfriend and Alameda’s former CEO Caroline Ellison, who is expected to testify against the former billionaire. Bankman-Fried met with a Times reporter and provided the paper with personal writings from Ellison, according to prosecutors. The article in question includes excerpts from Google documents serving as Ellison’s personal diary, in which she wrote she was “unhappy” at her job and felt “significantly” less excited about Alameda after a breakup with Bankman-Fried, who essentially served as her boss. Bankman-Fried’s “conduct is not only to harass Ellison, but also to deter other potential trial witnesses from testifying,” according to prosecutors.
Further Reading
Inside the Private Writings of Caroline Ellison, Star Witness in the FTX Case (New York Times)
The Younger Brother Caught in the Middle of the FTX Investigation (New York Times)
Sam Bankman-Fried’s brother planned to buy the island nation of Nauru with FTX funds to build an apocalypse bunker, new lawsuit alleges (Fortune)
FTX Sues Bankman-Fried, Associates Over $1 Billion in Bad Deals (Bloomberg)
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2023/07/21/sam-bankman-frieds-brother-allegedly-wanted-to-buy-pacific-island-country-to-build-doomsday-bunker-for-effective-altruists/