SBF donated $100M+ to political campaigns
Federal prosecutors alleged Sam Bankman-Fried used over $100 million in stolen FTX customer funds to make political donations ahead of the 2022 midterms.
Snapshot · PBD Podcast
The $110 Billion Dollar Man - Binance Founder Opens Up | PBD #797
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May 12, 2026
Where this was said
SBF's Political Donations & the DOJ Investigation Begins
At 2:00:20 · chapter starts 2:00:00
The political dimension of the FTX fallout is striking: federal prosecutors alleged SBF used over $100 million in stolen FTX customer funds to make donations on both sides of the aisle ahead of the 2022 midterms. CZ notes that as a Canadian citizen, political donations were never an option for him, and no one from the Biden administration ever approached him for support. But the timing of the regulatory response is hard to ignore: Binance's BUSD stablecoin was shut down in early 2023, and the SEC sued Binance, Binance US, and CZ personally just six months after FTX's collapse. Patrick's blunt read: CZ took away the biggest donor the administration had, making Binance a target. CZ calls the timing coincidental but doesn't push back hard on the implication. His lawyers, he notes, told him they had never seen a Bank Secrecy Act violation pursued with such aggression.
Freedom of Money Requires Freedom of Speech First
CZ's book is titled 'Freedom of Money' — and he argues the chain runs: physical freedom → free speech → free information → free money. That's why he backed Musk's Twitter acquisition: without a free global town square, financial freedom can't exist. He views X as infrastructure for the crypto world.
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