Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly owns a $100 million stake in Twitter

On Wednesday, a report from Semafor noted that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried allegedly owns a stake in Twitter that's worth a whopping $100 million. 

Gleefully mocking a former ally

The media outlet described how Elon Musk had gleefully mocked the meltdown of the crypto exchange FTX only after having desperately asked Bankman-Fried to roll the $100 million stake he had owned for a few months into a privately held Twitter on May 5. 

After this news was published by Business Insider, Musk took to Twitter to deny the claims, calling them "false.”

False. Also, Business is still not a real publication. Just give up.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 23, 2022

However, text exchanges between Musk and Bankman-Fried regarding the Twitter takeover were already released in September during the pretrial process for Twitter's lawsuit against Musk. 

They showcased how Bankman-Fried's advisor Will MacAskill had told Musk in March that the FTX founder had considered buying Twitter himself and would be willing to contribute as much as $8 billion to $15 billion. Musk’s banker Michael Grimes later added that Bankman-Fried was in for $5 billion and possibly up to $10 billion. 

A decision not to invest

Axios had previously reported that the two entrepreneurs allegedly had spoken on the phone with Bankman-Fried later deciding not to invest.

However, Musk does not seem grateful for the help Bankman-Friedman offered taking to Twitter Spaces to say that when he first met the FTX founder, his "bullshit meter was redlining." 

"Man, everyone including major investment banks — everyone was talking about him like he's walking on water and has a zillion dollars, and that was not my impression," Musk said. "That dude is just — there's something wrong, and he does not have capital, and he will not come through. That was my prediction."

Some very disparaging comments

The disparaging comments were made after Bankman-Fried had officially declared FTX bankrupt and resigned from his position in a statement.

Before everything collapsed, Bankman-Fried, however had his heart in the right place. The founder, who had shot to fame and riches overnight, believed in effective altruism, having plans to give away 99 percent of his wealth, something that very few tech billionaires do.

It seems we won’t be seeing whether Bankman-Fried would have gone ahead with his humanitarian plans, but one thing's for sure: we won’t be seeing Musk make such promises any time soon.

FTX faced a heavy liquidity crunch in early November as its investors looked to withdraw their cryptocurrency holdings amidst fears of plunging crypto prices. Help came from an unlikely source, its rival Binance, which has now signed a non-binding agreement to acquire the ailing crypto exchange, although it still remains unclear what the next steps will be for FTX.