Sam Bankman-Fried thinks he may spend $1 billion or more in the 2024 election. It would easily make him the single-largest political donor in history.
In a podcast interview, Bankman-Fried said he expects to give “north of $100 million” in the next presidential election. Also, the 30-year-old founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX has a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion. His spending is likely to be higher if former President Donald Trump runs again.
Sam Bankman-Fried set to make record-breaking political donation?
According to the government watchdog OpenSecrets, a $1 billion donation would smash all previous records by multiple factors. OpenSecrets analyzes data on campaign funding and lobbying.
Bankman-Fried said that the amount he contributes is “super contingent” and depends on who runs the plan. He will most likely split the money between several companies.
“I think that I’m going to be looking a lot less at political parties from that perspective and a lot more about sane governance and ads for the things that I care the most about,” he said.
Furthermore, he also believes that averting the next pandemic will cost “tens of billions of dollars.”
Money in politics
That amount of money would be unparalleled and would break existing records several times over if it were all spent as so-called “hard money,” which includes donations to candidates, parties, super PACs, and other groups required to report to the Federal Election Commission.
According to Open Secrets, the late Republican casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Miriam, spent the most money in any election cycle in 2020, spending $218 million.
In recent years, the Adelsons have competed with Democratic billionaires Michael Bloomberg and Tom Steyer for the title of largest donors in the country, spending between $75 and $150 million in each of the last three elections.