Kevin O’Leary Says He’d Invest in FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Again

SBF used at least $10 billion in FTX customer funds to prop up his hedge fund Alameda Research, according to Reuters, a move that’s very much against the law. And that’s to say nothing of what FTX was counting as assets, which have to be counted as fraud by any plain reading of the word. FTX was using fake money it created in the form of two tokens, FTT and Serum, and passing those off as real money.

It’s not just O’Leary who’s treating this incredibly illegal and fraudulent act as some kind of oopsie-daisy. The New York Times ran a strangely sympathetic article recently that painted a picture of SBF as merely a guy who had some bad luck with his investment decisions.

O’Leary says repeatedly in the new interview with Crypto Banter that we don’t know the facts yet and he’s going to wait until we know more about what happened at FTX. But we actually do know plenty of facts at this point, thanks not only to diligent reporting at outlets like Reuters and the Financial Times—because SBF himself has admitted that he used FTX funds in the billions to make risky bets at Alameda.

And yet O’Leary describes SBF as “productive,” “disciplined,” and “efficient” in the new interview, which is available on YouTube.

“Sam Bankman-Fried is an unusual one-percent person in terms of understanding how these assets work,” O’Leary said.

Well, we have to agree with you there, Mr. O’Leary. SBF certainly knew how ponzi schemes work. But we wouldn’t give him a dime after all the pain he’s caused for average working people who trusted FTX with their money.