On the 22nd of December 2022, Kevin O’Leary, the Chairman of O’Leary ventures and Shark tank’s Mr wonderful, went on Twitter to post what many are interpreting as support for Sam Bankman-fried.
https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv/status/1606013960825802769
His tweet said that he would prefer to invest in an entrepreneur that has tasted failure than one that assumes he would be successful from day one. And given his history with the former CEO of FTX, everybody believes that his tweet supports SBF and whatever business he would create in the future.
Yet this is not surprising for some. Kevin always supported SBF and his actions when the FTX situation was fresh in the news. He even went as far as saying that he would gladly invest in whatever venture SBF aims to create next.
And though he received a massive backlash for that sentiment, it came to light that he had signed a $15 million deal with FTX. in an interview, Kevin was asked about his agreement with FTX to be their spokesperson, and the value was worth $15 million. This is believed to be why Kevin has insisted that SBF is a 1% kind of guy that’s currently not guilty of Fraud.
https://twitter.com/kevinolearytv/status/1600101751427723265
In another interview about SBF and FTX, O’Leary believes that SBF is innocent until proven guilty. He also believes that the transactions on FTX’s servers are “100% auditable”. For that reason, the FTX servers should be turned on and audited. Once this audit is completed, the truth about FTX will be revealed. Then, everyone who violated the law will be prosecuted.
He contended that investors could recover at least some of their money if an audit is conducted. Since he is an investor as well, he is in the same boat as other institutional investors. His account on FTX worth millions of dollars was cleared, and he would need the details for accounting purposes.
So he tweeted that the situation of FTX is moving from a position of “throw everybody in jail” to that of funds recovery. Before its demise, FTX was the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by volume.
It later declared bankruptcy, and billions of dollars in investor money are now entangled in the bankruptcy process. The corporation may have over 1 million creditors, including Kevin O’Leary.
And what he has been saying so far is anything to go by. He has not had enough of SBF or FTX.
Feature Image courtesy of Flickr: Walt Disney Television