Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of crypto exchange FXT, was reportedly pursuing a massive sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift before the company collapsed.
Bankman-Fried was adamant in pushing the deal, which would have been worth $100 million for Swift over three years, even as his top advisors urged him to reconsider, CNBC reported on Wednesday, citing three people close to FTX.
The proposal apparently fell apart shortly before FTX, once valued at $32 billion, imploded last month and filed for bankruptcy amid allegations that customer funds were misappropriated.
Representatives for Swift and Bankman-Fried did not immediately respond to requests for comment from DailyMail.com.
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Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former CEO of crypto exchange FXT, was reportedly pursuing a massive sponsorship deal with Taylor Swift before the company collapsed
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Bankman-Fried was said to be adamant in pushing the deal, which would have been worth $100 million for Swift over three years, even as his top advisors urged him to reconsider
Prior to its downfall, FTX was well-known for its A-list celebrity partners, including sponsorship deals with Tom Brady, Steph Curry, Shaquille O’Neal and Larry David, among others.
Bankman-Fried also signed a $135 million, 19-year deal with the NBA’s Miami Heat for naming rights on the team’s arena.
‘Partnerships were an area that was more contentious and on the margin I originally was in favor and ultimately started pushing back on new ones,’ Bankman-Fried told CNBC, declining to comment on the Swift negotiations.
Meanwhile, Bankman-Fried has hired high-profile white collar defense attorney Mark S. Cohen to represent him amid ongoing investigations into the cryptocurrency exchange’s sudden downfall.
Bankman-Fried, 30, who was once touted as a budding entrepreneur after A-list celebrities backed his company, is facing questioning by American and Bahamian authorities investigating if he mismanaged funds, leading investors to lose billions of dollars last month and the company to file for bankruptcy.
He has now retained Cohen, of the law firm Cohen & Gresser, to represent him, Bankman-Fried’s spokesperson Mark Botnick told Reuters, noting that David Mills, a professor at Stanford Law School, will consult on the matter.
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Tom Brady and now ex-wife Gisele Bundchen appeared in an FTX commercial last year. They’re named in a class action lawsuit which alleges the firm’s collapse has cost consumers $11 billion
Cohen, a former assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, made a name for himself when he recently defended British heiress Ghislaine Maxwell in her sex trafficking trial.
FTX secretly transferred customer funds to its affiliate trading firm Alameda Research to fill a shortfall at the crypto trading firm, Reuters has previously reported.
The Wall Street Journal has previously reported that senior FTX officials knew the crypto exchange had dipped into its customer funds to help Alameda meet liabilities.
Speaking virtually at the New York Times’ Dealbook Summit with Andrew Ross Sorkin last week, Bankman-Fried said he did not knowingly commingle customer funds on FTX with funds at Alameda Research.
‘I didn’t ever try to commit fraud,’ Bankman-Fried said, adding that he does not think he has any criminal liability.
