FTX founder and former billionaire philanthropist Sam Bankman-Fried says he was thinking about trying to save lives as he built his now-failed crypto exchange, and that most corporate philanthropy is “bullshit.” Bankman-Fried, or SBF, made the remarks as he defended himself in a Wednesday interview with the New York Times during which he was asked whether he had committed fraud, lied, or stolen his customers’ funds. His answer to those three queries was essentially no. Bankman-Fried has not been charged with a crime, but questions abound about what happened to about $10 billion of his customers’ money.
Bankman-Fried, who has said his life’s goal was to make as much money as possible so he could donate his billions to charity, was also asked about his do-gooder image. Specifically, about comments he made in an earlier Vox interview that suggested his embrace of ethics may have been “a front.” Those comments seemed to cast doubt on SBF’s longtime involvement with effective altruism, a philanthropic movement that seeks solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. Asked to elaborate on “what it meant to look good in corporate America today,” Bankman-Fried replied in Wednesday’s interview that he cared most about having a positive impact on the world.
“ ‘We thought of ourselves as legitimately trying to do good, but we also thought about what we could do to make sure that our image reflected that.’”
— FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried
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