SBF Ties to Hollywood Super-Connector and Taylor Swift’s Openness to FTX Money Revealed in New Book

Julian Sancton

October 3, 2023 at 3:53 PM·5 min read

Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.
Oops!
Something went wrong.
Please try again later.

Sam Bankman-Fried had a plan to save humanity, and he would need celebrities to pull it off. In Going Infinite, Michael Lewis’ newly released account of Bankman-Fried’s vertiginous rise and fall, The Big Short and Moneyball author explains how the disgraced crypto tycoon — now in jail awaiting trial on fraud charges — claims to have been motivated by the tenets of effective altruism to earn billions so that he might give his fortune away to stave off existential risks such as an A.I. apocalypse. Hyperanalytical, socially challenged and defiantly disheveled with his cloud of black hair and his uniform of T-shirt and cargo shorts, Bankman-Fried fit awkwardly among the glamorous boldfaced names drawn to his sudden fame and phenomenal wealth. Yet he made the calculation that he needed them to draw users to his crypto exchange, FTX.

Lewis describes Bankman-Fried’s celeb-driven marketing strategy as at once haphazard — he was basically winging it — and strangely dispassionate: “[He] had no idea how to create a brand, and, as ever, zero interest in expert opinion about how to do it.”

More from The Hollywood Reporter

BRADY ABOVE ALL

To reach crypto enthusiasts — a largely young and male demographic — Bankman-Fried first turned to the sports world. He caught its attention after FTX purchased the naming rights to the Miami Heat’s arena for $155 million (having attempted and failed to secure rights for NFL stadiums in New Orleans and Kansas City). FTX even managed to slap its name on the uniforms of every umpire in Major League Baseball for $162.5 million, Lewis reports. FTX went on to sign deals with such legendary athletes as Shaquille O’Neal and Shohei Ohtani. But the real coup was snagging the endorsement of Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady for $55 million in FTX stock.

“Everywhere Sam went,” Lewis writes, “people mentioned that they had heard of FTX because of Brady. Hardly anyone mentioned any of the other endorsers.”

A “CRINGE” PURSUIT OF FASHION

The partnership with Brady was doubly effective, as it was bundled with a $19.8 million deal with Brady’s then-wife, Gisele Bündchen. The supermodel was Bankman-Fried’s entrée into the wider world of fashion and celebrity, according to Lewis. It was through her that he was introduced to Vogue editor and Met Gala chairperson Anna Wintour, with whom Lewis writes that Bankman-Fried was barely familiar.

The Zoom meeting between the two was, in Lewis’s detailed description, a surreal collision of worlds. Wintour, hoping perhaps to have Bankman-Fried bankroll the celeb-heavy Met Gala, patiently explained what the event was while the slovenly crypto tycoon pretended to listen, more focused on the video game he was playing in the background. According to Lewis (as if his wardrobe weren’t evidence enough), Bankman-Fried thoroughly disdained the fashion world, which he considered superficial. Yet he also believed that infiltrating fashion circles was key to attracting female users to his exchange. “It was all part of the celebrity deal with Gisele,” said former FTX PR chief Natalie Tien, according to Lewis. “Very cringe. No one at FTX liked the idea, including Sam himself.”

In the end, he backed out of his commitments to attend and potentially finance the Met Gala, to the outrage of Wintour’s team. “They called and shouted and said Sam will never set foot in fashion again!” Tien tells Lewis.

SWIFT WAS INTERESTED

Yet Bankman-Fried was undaunted in his efforts to lure celebrity spokespeople. According to FTX’s own calculations, the exchange paid out $500 million in endorsement deals since its inception. Lewis reports that FTX paid comedian Larry David $10 million for his well-reviewed Super Bowl anti-endorsement. Few were the stars who declined FTX’s money. NBA great Steph Curry had initially turned down an offer, but later changed his mind, Lewis writes. And while Taylor Swift made headlines for rejecting FTX’s money, Lewis reports that the story was more complicated:

“FTX had an agreement with Swift to pay her between $25 and $30 million a year,” Lewis writes, “but Sam dragged his feet on the deal. ‘She wanted to do it,’ said [former FTX employee] Natalie Tien, ‘but Sam kept postponing on response to her team.’ Another person intimately involved with the negotiation between Swift and FTX said, ‘Taylor did not turn it down. They were waiting for Sam to sign it when he didn’t.’”

FTX’s celebrity deals weren’t limited to megastars like Brady and Swift. Lewis learns that the exchange had paid $15.7 million to Shark Tank’s Kevin O’Leary — whom the author describes as “maybe not even the second-most famous Shark Tank person” — for “20 service hours, 20 social posts, one virtual lunch and 50 autographs.”

THE SUPER CONNECTOR TO THE A-LIST

According to the book, Bankman-Fried frequently made investment decisions at FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research — the cryptocurrency trading firm he’d founded and toward which he allegedly funneled customer funds from FTX in defiance of regulations — without consulting anyone else at the company. Among such decisions, Lewis reports, was the promise to invest $5 billion in K5 Global, a financial advisory firm founded by former CAA agent and renowned super-connector Michael Kives. (Bankman-Fried’s colleagues and FTX lawyers eventually negotiated the sum down to $500.)

While on a trip to L.A., Bankman-Fried was invited to attend a star-studded dinner party hosted by Kives. The invitation had come out of the blue — neither Bankman-Fried nor his colleagues knew much about Kives, not even how to pronounce his name (KEE-vus), and some employees feared the invitation was a plot to kidnap Bankman-Fried. Yet he attended anyway and mingled (presumably awkwardly) with Leonardo DiCaprio, Chris Rock, Katy Perry, Kate Hudson, Orlando Bloom, Jeff Bezos, Doug Emhoff “and at least four Kardashians.”

Bankman-Fried must have made an impression. The next day, Katy Perry (a former client of Kives’) posted on Instagram:

“im quitting music and becoming an intern for @ftx_official ok