FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried and Elon Musk discuss Twitter Acquisition

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the crypto billionaire, was in contact with Elon Musk about acquiring Twitter, as revealed by the text messages in the legal proceedings. 

Will MacAskill, a top advisor of SBF had contacted Musk about SBF’s “potentially interested” in acquiring the social media giant, as reported by Business Insider on September 28. This was revealed after Kate Conger, a New York Times reporter had shared the link to the legal exhibit of Musks’ text messages on Twitter. 

MacAskill contacted Musk on March 29, 2022, after he had posted a poll about free speech and Twitter on the social media platform. He put out the proposal of a “possible joint effort” for buying Twitter and offered to connect him with SBF to discuss more. 

Musk’s response question was whether SBF had “huge amounts of money?” The advisor informed him about SBF’s net worth of $24 billion. He further informed that SBF could easily contribute amounts between $1 billion to $8 billion and if increased to $15 billion, that will require some extra funding. According to Forbes, the real-time net worth of SBF is currently closer to $17 billion. 

According to the Business Insider report, the advisor attempted to arrange a meeting between the two, and the financials were discussed with a Morgan Stanley banker in April. However, it was unsuccessful and Musk also took back his $44 billion Twitter takeover deal in July claiming the social media giant did not provide correct information about spam and bot activity. 

Various texts and messages have been revealed between Musk and other industry leaders such as Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, former CEO Jack Dorsey, Chairman of Twitter Board Bret Taylor, and Oracle Chairman Larry Ellison.

SBF Expanding his crypto empire

Considering the recent acquisition spree of the crypto billionaire, his interest in buying Twitter does not come as a surprise. To expand his crypto empire, SBF has been aggressively acquiring struggling digital asset companies. 

Earlier this week, FTX exchange won the auction to buy Voyager Digital’s assets worth $1.4 billion and the counsel for Voyager has proposed an order to authorize the sale on September 29. 

According to CrunchBase, the research and venture firm owned by SBF, Alameda has made 181 investments since 2017, and there are additional 22 investments for FTX according to its report.