After Sam Bankman Fried, disgraced ex-FTX CEO and now Intercept editor revealed that a multimillion-dollar donation from him would be made to the Intercept, readers were asked for donations. “on hold”FTX filed for bankruptcy
Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX plummeted from a $32 billion valuation to facing bankruptcy after his company was at the center of significant scandals in the cryptocurrency space last week.
As Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney explained:
We’re still learning exactly what happened to FTX, but there are definite echoes from the financial crisis. Coindesk announced that FTX had created a significant portion of Alameda Research’s $14.6 million assets on November 3rd. These tokens are sort of like airline miles—a kind of currency generated by the company that is issued to its customers—except that they could be traded on crypto exchanges. This was because Alameda Research, which is owned by FTX founder Sam Bankman Fried (who everyone refers to as SBF), disturbed many. This raised the possibility that the value of FTT, the FTX tokens, was being artificially propped up by Alameda’s dragon hoard of the tokens.
Bankman-Fried was a Democrat megadonor and funneled millions to media outlets via the Building a Stronger Future foundation, which is his philanthropic entity.
Also @SBF_FTX gave money to media outlets like Vox & The Intercept. He’s had glowing puff pieces in NYT, Fortune, Forbes, CNBC…
Many glowing PR can be bought by writing big fat cheques for the Democrats
https://t.co/uonYNjZnOK— Rita Panahi (@RitaPanahi) November 16, 2022
The Intercept is one of several media outlets that received a hefty donation from Bankman-Fried’s foundation.
The Intercept received $4 million from Bankman Fried over the course of two years. The outlet received $500,000 from the $4 million they donated to help support their reporting so far “on biosafety and pandemic prevention.”
However, The Intercept’s Acting Editor-in-Chief, Roger Hodge, announced on Friday that future grant payments are “on hold,”Using the announcement, he asked readers to donate.
Hodge wrote:
Much remains unknown about the future of FTX and SBF’s philanthropic giving. We are in contact with other newsrooms, including those that were supported by the Building a Stronger Future Foundation.
As of now, however, there is a substantial hole in our budget. If you are able, please consider donating today to support The Intercept’s crusading independent journalism.
What number of publications was SBF willing to bribe for? pic.twitter.com/nLDGr15XGo
— David Sacks (@DavidSacks) November 18, 2022
It is unclear whether the outlet plans to keep or return the $500,000 it has already received from Bankman-Fried’s foundation.
In the aftermath of FTX’s collapse, some celebrity endorsers, including Tom Brady, Gisele Bündchen, Larry David, David Ortiz, Steph Curry, and Shaquille O’Neal, along with Bankman-Fried, are being sued by cryptocurrency investors.
FTX is “ultimately a Ponzi scheme, misleading customers and prospective customers with the false impression that any cryptocurrency assets held on the Deceptive FTX Platform were safe and were not being invested in unregistered securities,” the lawsuit alleges.
The Intercept is not the only media outlet that received funding from Bankman-Fried’s Building a Stronger Future Foundation.
Today, I mentioned that it is uncertain whether SBF can continue to fund media.
These grants have been made to:
— ProPublica
— Vox
— The Intercept
— Semafor
— The Law and Justice Journalism Project
— A podcasthttps://t.co/hqeislc8fr https://t.co/cPT1geNoGw— Teddy Schleifer (@teddyschleifer) November 11, 2022
ProPublica also received $5 million from the foundation in support of their reporting “on pandemic preparedness and biothreats,”One-third of the grant was received earlier in the year, with the remainder disbursed over two years.
Robin Sparkman, ProPublica’s president, also stated that future grants payments will be made. “on hold.”
The ProPublica Foundation has halted grants to Sam Bankman Fried. Below is the email that Robin Sparkman, President of ProPublica, sent this afternoon to his staff. pic.twitter.com/J62bdFsppo
— Max Tani (@maxwelltani) November 11, 2022
Sparkman said Bankman-Fried’s foundation is “assessing its finances and, concurrently, talking to other funders about taking on some of its grant portfolio.”
Formerly known media outlet Semafor New York Times columnist Ben Smith, also received an undisclosed investment from the Building a Stronger Future Foundation. Vox received an undisclosed sum of money from the foundation.
Jordan Dixon-Hamilton works as a reporter at Breitbart. Send an email to Jordan Dixon-Hamilton [email protected] or follow him on Twitter.
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