Revisiting The Texts Between Elon Musk And Sam Bankman-Fried About Potential Twitter Deal

Zinger Key Points
  • Elon Musk asked Will MacAskill if Sam Bankman-Fried really had $3 billion liquid to invest in Twitter.
  • Musk and SBF were connected by effective altruist MacAskill.

Elon Musk’s long-winding road to owning Twitter started back in March when it was revealed he was the company’s largest shareholder according to a securities filing. In anticipation of acquiring the company, Musk began meeting with other wealthy people who could invest with him. 

Destruction Of Capital: One of those is now disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who quickly went from one of the heroes of the crypto industry to arguably its biggest disappointment. FTX allegedly used billions of dollars of customer deposits to fund risky crypto bets at Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research

Matt Binder, a reporter and writer at Mashable, shared screenshots of court records documenting texts between Musk, Bankman-Fried and others. The texts were made public during Musk’s legal proceedings with Twitter. 

 

In one of the texts, Musk asked Will MacAskill, known for helping popularize "effective altruism," if Bankman-Fried “actually has $3b liquid.”

Well, the answer to that question now is almost certainly no, with Bloomberg’s Billionaire Index estimating Bankman-Fried’s net worth at $0

Read Also: Crypto's White Knight Needs A White Knight: Could The FTX/CZ Drama Be Sam Bankman-Fried's Fall From Grace?

Musk’s banker in the deal, Michael Grimes, told Musk in a text that Bankman-Fried could help integrate blockchain into Twitter. Musk, who had expressed interest in that idea, replied that it is not possible. In another text, Musk asks Grimes to follow up with Orlando Bravo to see why Bravo declined to invest with Musk in Twitter. 

FTX officially filed for bankruptcy on Friday. According to reports, Musk warned Twitter employees that the company could face bankruptcy as well. On June 30, when Twitter was still a public company and open financial statements, it had more than $2 billion in cash equivalents and was burning about $200 million a year. 

Read Also: Elon Musk Warns Twitter Staff That Bankruptcy Is Not Out Of The Question

Photo: Pixabay; SBF, Wikimedia; Knight, Rick Partington by Shutterstock

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