Disgraced Ex-CEO Was Plotting to FUNNEL Billions Into Dems

Investigative reporter Theodore Schleifer reported on November 23 that Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of the now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX, had intended to surpass all other donors to the Democratic Party in 2024, a cycle in which he may have spent up to $1 billion.

According to Schleifer, who cited the corporate database Open Corporates, the formerly billionaire submitted paperwork in Delaware in April 2022 to register an umbrella corporation called The Center for the Future. Schleifer claims, citing sources who spoke with Bankman-aides, Fried’s that the organization was founded as the first shot in a 50-year influence campaign intended to fundamentally alter American politics. The organization was intended to address a variety of contentious issues, from pandemic preparedness to democracy reform.

“Sam’s idea is he basically saw all the world’s biggest problems as being multi-decade, multi-century trillion-dollar problems. How do you solve global hunger? You can’t possibly hope to solve pandemic prevention on the timescale of one person’s lifetime. Rather than think about how to solve that in a 10 or a 20 or a 30-year career, think in terms of 50 or 100 years,” Schleifer was informed by an unnamed individual who works at The Center for the Future.

According to financial watchdog Open Secrets, Bankman-Fried was already the second largest individual donor to Democrats after George Soros after spending about $37 million on Democratic concerns in the 2022 midterm season.

Schleifer asserts that he has obtained tax records for Guarding Against Pandemics, one of Bankman-principal Fried’s political organizations, demonstrating that the company earned $22.7 million in 2021. Since then, the organization has rapidly expanded by hiring more full-time employees and consultants.

According to Schleifer, Bankman-Fried bought Deck, a Democratic software startup that helps the party target voters, as part of his effort to get ready for the 2024 election. He paid about $5 million for the company after hearing positive feedback from his mother, Barbara Fried. In order to maximize outreach, he was also conducting trials and carrying out statistical studies to evaluate the efficacy of Facebook advertising, neighborhood newsletters, and other campaign tools.

Fried and Gabe Bankman-Fried recently resigned from their positions at Mind the Gap, a Democratic dark money organization that links wealthy donors to campaigns they think will yield the best returns on investment but does not itself make donations.

Schleifer calculates that Bankman-Fried has invested around $100 million across all of the former businessman’s political groups and organizations, although she emphasizes that this sum may be an underestimate.