Tag: bankman-fried:
SNL’s ‘Weekend Update’ roasts Sam Bankman-Fried, Trump NFTs, and Marjorie Taylor Greene
SNL couldn’t get enough of Trump’s crappy NFTs this week. The cold open addressed the president’s strange digital trading cards and so did Weekend Update.
“Semi-retired maniac Donald Trump has launched a collection of digital NFT trading cards depicting him in various costumes, including cowboy, super-hero, and most unbelievable of all, guy who didn’t dodge the draft,” said Colin Jost as a picture of Trump in a flight-suit flashed across the screen.
“I’m honestly just relieved he’s wearing an American military uniform,” Jost joked.
From there, Jost added that Trump jumped into NFTs at the funniest time: right as everything crashed.
“It’s like getting into Kanye now,” Jost said, “which Trump also kind of did.”
From there hosts Jost and Michael Che joked about FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, President Joe Biden, and congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Democrats Plan To Return Over $1 Million From FTX Founder Sam Bankman-Fried
The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee have also pledged to set aside the $103,000 and $250,000 each received from Bankman-Fried, respectively, according to The Post. Over the last two years, Bankman-Fried became one of the most prolific political megadonors in the US, contributing more than $40 million in personal donations to mostly Democratic campaigns and organizations. But shortly after FTX went bankrupt in November, Bankman-Fried told crypto reporter Tiffany Fong that he donated a similar amount of money to Republican groups as well.
While the extent of Bankman-Fried’s GOP contributions has yet to be uncovered, Democratic candidates have been pressured to return any money they received from the crypto mogul. CBS News reported Thursday that most Democratic campaigns that received publicly disclosed contributions from Bankman-Fried have pledged to either return or donate the money to charity. Newly elected Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) confirmed Wednesday that he would donate Bankman-Fried’s contributions to his campaign to the Zebra Coalition, a Florida-based group servicing homeless LGBTQ+ youth. […] Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Tina Smith (D-MN), Alex Padilla (D-CA), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA) all received $5,800 from Bankman-Fried since last year and have either already donated or plan to donate the funds, according to CBS News.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
: Sam Bankman-Fried scrubbed from Giving Pledge list of billionaire philanthropists
Here’s everything Sam Bankman-Fried is accused of by the US government
On Monday evening, Bahamian authorities arrested FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried at the request of the US government. The following morning, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Department of Justice (DOJ) and Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed formal civil and criminal charges against Bankman-Fried in “parallel actions.” It was a lot to take in all at once, so below Engadget has broken up current charges against SBF by agency, with some additional context provided.
Those indictments likely represent only the start of Bankman-Fried’s troubles. In addition to the charges it announced on Tuesday, the SEC said it was investigating Bankman-Fried for other securities violations. The agency also announced that it’s actively examining the actions of other FTX executives and employees. As more charges are unsealed, Engadget will continue to update this article.
Securities and Exchange Commission
The Securities and Exchange Commission accused SBF of defrauding FTX investors and customers of more than $1.9 billion. Starting as early as May 2019 until as recently as this past November, “Bankman-Fried was orchestrating a massive, years-long fraud, diverting billions of dollars of the trading platform’s customers funds for his own personal benefit and to help grow his crypto empire,” the SEC said.
All the while, Bankman-Fried portrayed himself as a responsible business leader building a safe trading platform with “sophisticated, automated measures to protect customer assets.” In reality, the SEC says, “Bankman-Fried orchestrated a fraud to conceal the diversion of customer funds to his privately-held crypto hedge fund, Alameda Research.”
Today we charged FTX Trading Ltd CEO and co-founder Samuel Bankman-Fried with orchestrating a scheme to defraud equity investors. Investigations as to other securities law violations and into other entities and persons relating to the alleged misconduct are ongoing.
— U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (@SECGov) December 13, 2022
Bankman-Fried told investors and customers FTX’s sister company was just another platform on the exchange with no special privileges to speak of. “These statements were false and misleading,” according to the SEC. Alameda had access to a “virtually unlimited ‘line of credit” unknowingly funded by FTX customers. In May 2022, when Alameda’s lenders demanded the firm repay loans worth billions of dollars, Bankman-Fried allegedly directed FTX to divert even more money to the hedge fund.
The SEC seeks to bar Bankman-Friend from trading securities in the future. The agency also wants to seize his ill-gotten gains and bar him from acting as an officer or director at another company.
Current FTX CEO John Ray III testified before the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday — SBF had said he would attend the hearing before his arrest. Ray spoke to some of the allegations detailed by the SEC. “This is really old-fashioned embezzlement,” he told the panel. “We’ve lost $8 billion. I don’t trust a single piece of paper in this organization.”
Department of Justice
In addition to civil charges, Bankman-Fried faces a criminal indictment from the Justice Department. On Tuesday, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York filed eight charges against the former executive, including multiple counts of wire fraud. The Justice Department alleges SBF conspired with other individuals to defraud investors by sharing misleading information about FTX and Alameda’s financial condition. Prosecutors further accused him of attempting to commit commodities and securities fraud. On top of that, Bankman-Fried allegedly broke federal election laws by donating more than is legally allowed and in the names of other people.
Watch today’s complete FTX hearing with CEO John Ray re-airing at 8pm ET on C-SPAN or anytime online here: https://t.co/UZeZcu93mcpic.twitter.com/qmLfR1VWiN
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 14, 2022
SBF spoke about his political donations in a recent interview with journalist Tiffany Fong. “I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties,” he said. “All my Republican donations were dark. The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans.”
It’s worth emphasizing how serious the criminal charges against Bankman-Fried are. For context, a federal judge recently sentenced Theranos founder and former CEO Elizabeth Holmes to 11 years in prison for defrauding the company’s investors and patients. Meanwhile, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the startup’s former chief operating officer, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison for his role in the scheme. Sam Bankman-Fried stands accused of defrauding investors of almost $2 billion, or about twice what investors lost to Theranos.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Rounding out the current charges against Bankman-Fried, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission accused the former executive of using Alameda Research to “surreptitiously” siphon customer funds. “At Bankman-Fried’s direction, FTX executives created features in the underlying code for FTX that allowed Alameda to maintain an essentially unlimited line of credit on FTX,” the regulator alleges. It adds that Alameda had other “unfair” advantages, including an exemption from the platform’s auto-liquidation risk management process.
.@AOC (D-NY) questions new FTX CEO John Ray on timing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s arrest by the Bahamian government. pic.twitter.com/2foxUpsitR
— CSPAN (@cspan) December 13, 2022
As early as May 2019, SBF and “at least one” other Alameda executive directed the firm to use FTX customer funds to trade on competing platforms and buy “high-risk” digital assets. Additionally, the CFTC alleges that Bankman-Fried and his cohorts “took hundreds of millions of dollars in poorly-documented ‘loans’ from Alameda,” which they then used to purchase real estate and make political donations.
For his actions, the CFTC is seeking to ban Bankman-Fried from trading derivatives and impose civil penalties against him. It also wants to bar him from acting as a director or officer in the future.
Sam Bankman-Fried pictured being led away in cuffs after he’s denied bail and sent to Bahamas jail
FTX crypto boss Sam Bankman-Fried denied bail in Bahamas
FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Charged With Fraud, Denied Bail – CNET
Sam Bankman-Fried is denied bail in the Bahamas
Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of FTX, was denied bail on Tuesday after a Bahamian judge deemed him a flight risk, according to Reuters. An extradition hearing is scheduled for February 8th.
Bankman-Fried, nicknamed “SBF,” was arrested in the Bahamas Monday evening after US prosecutors informed the Bahamas of sweeping criminal charges expected to be filed against the disgraced crypto darling. In an unsealed indictment Tuesday, prosecutors at the Justice Department’s Southern District of New York charged Bankman-Fried with eight counts of fraud, including lying to investors and violating US campaign finance law.
Earlier on Tuesday, Bankman-Fried appeared before a Bahamas court in his first public appearance since FTX’s November…
The many lies of Sam Bankman-Fried
The US government says it was fraud from the jump. The complaint made public today by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission has some hair-raising details — and if it’s right, Sam Bankman-Fried hasn’t been telling the truth for quite some time. According to the complaint, Bankman-Fried operated Alameda Research and FTX as a common enterprise, for instance. This complaint is civil.
In a press conference today, US attorney Damian Williams characterized Alameda Research and FTX as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”
Sam Bankman-Fried was deeply involved with Alameda Research
Bankman-Fried said that he “didn’t know exactly what was going on” at Alameda Research and that he “wasn’t running Alameda.” According to…