Billionaire founder and CEO of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried has revealed that he intends to spend between $100 million and $1 billion to help influence the 2024 United States presidential election campaigns.
In a podcast interview on May 24, Bankman-Fried was asked how much money he could donate during the next presidential election cycle, replying that he would give “over $100 million” with a “soft maximum” of $1 billion. dollars if he had to finance the person who would run against former President Donald Trump.
“I’d hate to say max hard because who knows what’s going to happen between now and then.”
According to government watchdog OpenSecrets, which tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying, a $1 billion donation would break existing records multiple times.
The largest individual political donors are currently Republican businessmen Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, who spent $218 million in 2020.
Bankman-Fried went on to say that the amount he donates is “super contingent” and “really dependent on exactly who is running where and why.”adding that it is likely to distribute the money among multiple organizations.
“I think I’m going to look a lot less at political parties from that perspective and a lot more at sound governance and ads for the things that matter most to me.”
He said one of the biggest issues for him is preventing the next pandemic, which he believes would cost “tens of billions of dollars.”
“The United States has both a great opportunity and a great responsibility to the world to lead the West in a powerful but responsible way.”adding that everything the country does has “huge ripple effects on the future.”
Bankman-Fried has donated millions to politicians in the past, contributing $5.2 million in donations to now-President Joe Biden’s 2020 election campaign.
He also supports the political action committee (PAC) “Protect Our Future”created in January 2022, which through April spent $9 million supporting Democratic candidates.
In early May, the PAC spent between $8 million and $10 million to back Carrick Flynn, who did not win the Democratic primary for Oregon’s newly created 6th district in the US House of Representatives.
However, it may be the case that Bankman-Fried decides not to donate any money, although he believes that this possibility is “very low”:
“There is a world that ends up being close to zero if things work in such a way that there is not much that excites me.”
The CEO of FTX did not state in interviews what cryptocurrency-related policies he would push. At rival exchange Coinbase, efforts are intensifying in terms of pushing for crypto-friendly policies with the announcement last week by a “crypto native” think tank, the Coinbase Institute.
It will publish research on cryptocurrencies and Web3 to bolster exchange lobbying efforts. In 2021, the firm was the biggest spending blockchain company in terms of lobbying, with more than $1.3 million spent.
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