lpetrich
Contributor
The Koch brothers, the Mercer family, the Adelson family, Mike Bloomberg, Tom Steyer, George Soros, ... there is a new kid on the oligarch block: young cryptocurrency billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried.
Crypto billionaire says he could spend a record $1 billion in 2024 election
Crypto billionaire says he could spend a record $1 billion in 2024 election
Some oligarchs have spent a *lot*.Democratic billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried says he could spend $1 billion or more in the 2024 election, which would easily make him the biggest-ever political donor in a single election.
Bankman-Fried, 30, the founder of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said in a podcast interview released Tuesday that he expects to give “north of $100 million” in the next presidential election and that he has a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion, with his spending likely to be on the higher end if former President Donald Trump runs again.
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Bankman-Fried, who is estimated to be worth more than $20 billion and says he has already given away more than $200 million to various causes, cautions that his political plans are still in flux and that they will be contingent on what the landscape looks like.
What is he doing?The most hard money any individual has spent in any election cycle was $218 million in 2020, by the late Republican casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, according to OpenSecrets.
The Adelsons have competed in recent years to be the biggest donors in the country with Democratic billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer, who have each spent $75 million to $150 million in the last three elections (not including the money they spent on their own presidential campaigns in 2020).
Liberal billionaire George Soros this year committed to spend $125 million toward this year's midterms.
Beyond those well-known names, even mega-donors typically top out around $40 million to $60 million per election cycle, so $100 million would put Bankman-Fried among a tiny handful of the country's biggest donors.
But he may have a more self-interested motive in mind. OpenSecrets | 2022 Crypto Industry Donors - he is one of several cryptocurrency-industry donors, and if other lobbyists' efforts are any guide, they want more favorable treatment, like more lax regulation and bailouts after crashes.Bankman-Fried has spent at least $20 million this year supporting candidates in Democratic congressional primaries who have pledged to push the U.S. government to invest in stopping the next pandemic.
Bankman-Fried is an adherent of effective altruism, a utilitarian philosophy that promotes ideas like earning lots of money to give it all away.
He went into finance and started donating large parts of his paychecks long before he made his first billion, and he still lives fairly modestly, with roommates and a Toyota Corolla, with a stated goal of giving away the vast majority of his fortune as he makes it.