FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried Was ‘Potentially Interested’ in Buying Twitter with Elon Musk, Texts Claim

Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried has wanted to buy Twitter for a while, according to texts revealed in Elon Musks legal proceedings against the social media platform.

Insider reported Thursday that William MacAskillwho is a part of the SBF-funded FTX Future Fundwas trying to set up a meeting between the FTX CEO and Musk back in March to see if the two could purchase Twitter in a joint effort.

The text message exhibits were subsequently published online byNew York Times reporter Kate Conger, corroborating the Insider account.

MacAskill, a self-described altruist and philosophy professor at Oxford University, reportedly said that Bankman-Fried was willing to contribute roughly $8-15 billion to the Twitter acquisition, but Morgan Stanleys Head of Global Technology Investment Banking Michael Grimes later told Musk that Bankman-Fried would only be open to handing over $5 billion for a joint deal to share the Web2 company.

Grimesno relation to Musks ex-girlfriend, singer Grimesis said to have talked up Bankman-Fried to the SpaceX and Tesla CEO, calling SBF an ultra genius and doer builder.

Now, the ultimate crypto-tech billionaire teamup is unlikely to play out given Musks subsequent aversion to Twitters practices.

Musk said the Twitter deal couldnt move forward because hes convinced that 90% of Twitter comments are from bot or spam accounts. Musks team also raised concerns about the extent to which Twitters reported 238 million daily active users are real humans and not automated bot accounts.

The Tesla CEOs representatives alleged that Twitter made false and misleading representations and is in material breach of multiple provisions of their agreement, according to a July filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk back in July in response to Musk backing away from the $44 billion deal.

Twitter argued Musk was not was not allowed to trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away, according to the July filing. It also said that employee departures were on the rise since the deal became public.

But in an August filing, Musks team cited a whistleblower report from Twitters former Head of Security Pieter Zatko which claimed that half of Twitters staff have access to sensitive systems, posing a security risk.

Zatkos report also claimed that Twitter does not own or license its own core code, meaning that the codes owners could either shut down much of Twitters business through an injunction or demand substantial damages at any time.

Sam Bankman-Fried and MacAskill have not yet responded to Decrypts requests for comment.

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