CEO of FTX Crypto Exchange considered buying Twitter with Elon Musk
Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the billionaire CEO of crypto exchange FTX, was interested in joining Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, according to new court documents released as part of the case discovery process.
Business Insider reports that Will MacAskill, a manager of the SBF-funded foundation FTX Future Fund and a top adviser to the CEO, texted Elon Musk in March regarding SBF’s interest in Twitter.
“Hi — I saw your poll on Twitter about Twitter and free speech. I’m not sure if this is what you’re thinking, but my collaborator Sam Bankman-Fried has been interested for a while in potentially buying it and then making it better for world. If you want to talk to him about a possible joint effort in that direction,” the unedited message reads.
MacAskill went on to reveal that SBF would be willing to commit $8 billion to $15 billion to the joint venture. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, for his part, made inquiries about SBF while discussing financing with Morgan Stanley banker Morgan Grimes.
According to a text exchange between Musk and Grimes in April, the banker told Musk he would like SBF since he was a “genius and do-builder” and could potentially provide up to $5 billion. However, Musk refused to set up a meeting with SBF or include him in the deal.
The collapse of the Twitter agreement and SBF’s vision for Twitter
Musk’s SEC filing in May of investors who funded the Twitter deal did not include SBF or FTX. Text messages exchanged between Musk and other billionaires, including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, were also made public.
The disclosures are part of the pre-trial discovery process in Twitter’s case suing Musk for trying to back out of the roughly $44 billion purchase deal. Musk has claimed in the suit that Twitter “made false and misleading representations”, particularly in the reported number of active users.
Musk maintains that he is convinced that 90% of Twitter comments are from either or spam accounts. The case is up for a five-day trial starting on October 17 that will determine whether Musk will be forced to go ahead with the deal.
SBF’s interest in Twitter is not surprising as the serial investor has previously shared proposals on how the social media platform can leverage blockchain and Web 3.0 technology. In a Twitter thread in April, SBF explained how the platform can use Dogecoin (DOGE) – a meme cryptocurrency Elon Musk supports – to stimulate new business models.
He also told Bloomberg in the same month that he believes social media platforms in their current form are broken but can be fixed with blockchain technology.
