Why FTX Passed On Investing in Twitter: SBF

FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) broke down his decision to pass on investing in Twitter at the Forbes Iconoclast Summit on Thursday.

Though excited about Elon Musk’s plans, the young billionaire believed his company had little to contribute to help them manifest.

Nothing to Offer

As SBF summarized over Twitter on Thursday, his company’s strengths didn’t seem to be “what was needed for Elon’s vision for Twitter.” For example, Musk did not seem so interested in working on a blockchain payment solution, which FTX would have otherwise assisted with. 

Dogecoin pumped earlier this week after Elon teased a possible Dogecoin payments solution for Twiter. Likewise, when other reports emerged on Thursday that Twitter’s crypto wallet plans had been paused, the memecoin subsequently dumped by 8%.

SBF emphasized that Musk’s revamping of Twitter’s board was a necessary move, and that he’s excited to see Musk execute his vision for the platform. 

“I think there is a ton of upside in what he’s doing,” he said at the Forbes conference. “It’s not exactly the same as what my vision would be. That’s okay – it doesn’t have to be.” 

Despite his optimism, SBF said that he didn’t believe his vision for Twitter was “complementary” to Musk’s, so he didn’t get involved. “He’s got his vision, so he’s the one who should be running with that,” he said.

SBF was in contact with Musk alongside a handful of other crypto leaders prior to the latter’s Twitter acquisition. Some users on crypto Twitter pointed out that those messages showed Musk rejecting SBF’s offer to back the deal, rather than the other way around. 

However, the CEO maintains that FTX voluntarily abstained from support and that the court records “were, for some reason, missing some messages.”

Twitter and Binance

While FTX opted to stay out of the way, Binance eagerly backed Musk’s bid with $500 million the moment he endeavored to buy Twitter. 

According to the exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao, Binance was attracted to Musk’s offer due to his vision for free speech, and the possibility to get crypto “a seat at the table” in fixing the platform.

“I believe Twitter has not been monetized well, it has not grown well, there are many tactical problems like bots that spam my comments, there are scammer accounts on there,” he said on Monday.