“I donated to both parties,” Bankman-Fried told crypto commentator and journalist Tiffany Fong. For the Republicans he donated covertly, with black money, as he goes on to say, “so as not to give the super-liberal reporters any reason to freak out”. Bankman-Fried wanted to save himself a fight – as reported by the British “Guardian”. Legally, a 2010 Supreme Court decision allowed him to make anonymous donations.
Why Bankman-Fried is revealing this secret now, when a political battle has broken out over the decline of the FTX exchange, will probably remain his secret. In fact, he broke the news on Wednesday, just a day before the Senate hearings on the FTX collapse. The Republicans are blaming the Democrats, whose official major donor was Bankman-Fried, for lack of oversight in the case of FTX and the associated collapse.
Looking at the volume of donations to the two parties, one might get the impression that the crypto billionaire was closer to the Democrats. In the last election cycle, $990 million went to Democratic candidates and only $235,000 to Republican candidates. Another $38.8 million went to outside Democratic groups.
