Billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried Explains Why Crypto Exchange FTX Passed on Funding Twitter Acquisition

The chief executive of FTX is revealing why the crypto exchange passed on funding Elon Musk’s acquisition of social media giant Twitter.

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried tells his 793,500 Twitter followers that FTX stayed on the sidelines because it wasn’t clear how the social media platform would incorporate crypto technology into its business model with Musk at its helm.

“We passed on Twitter because it didn’t seem like our strengths were what was needed for Elon’s vision for Twitter (e.g. if he wanted to do blockchain-based social media, or blockchain wallets/payments, we’d have been excited to work on that! And who knows, maybe he still will).”

In a recent interview with Forbes, Bankman-Fried also says that he spoke with Musk, and while he believes in the Tesla CEO and his vision for Twitter, he wasn’t convinced that FTX should get involved.

“I’m really excited for what he’s doing. I think it’s going to hopefully revitalize Twitter. There’s a lot of open questions and a lot of tough questions that I think have to be answered. I think there is a ton of upside in what he’s doing…

He’s got a vision for what he wants to do with Twitter, and I think his vision is not exactly the same vision as mine would be, but that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be. And ultimately I view this as ‘Is this a case where our visions are complementary and that there’s really something I can add to it?’

I don’t think that ended up being the case, and so it ended up an opportunity where I didn’t feel like it made sense for us to get involved.”

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