Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried just handed $16 million to Super PACs as primaries swing into gear
- Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried ploughed $16 million into super PACs in April.
- According to Bloomberg, a hefty $10 million was donated to a pandemic-preventing super PAC.
Crypto billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried injected $16 million into political outside spending groups in April, Bloomberg reported, in the run-up to the US midterm elections later in the year.
Of those donations to super political action committees, $10 million went to Protect Our Future, the report said, citing filings from the Federal Election Commission. The remaining $6 million went to the House Majority PAC, which has links to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Bankman-Fried made the donations to heading into a busy summer season of primary races. Super PACs can raise unlimited funding from backers including individuals and companies, which is then used in candidates' campaigns.
The FTX chief executive's latest injection brings his total in this election cycle to as high as $31.5 million, per Bloomberg. That has ended up funding a stream of ads and other promos, leading some to complain that Bankman-Fried is trying to "buy" elections.
Protect Our Future, which says it is dedicated to preventing the next pandemic, has spent almost $24 million on campaigns in 2022, according to ProPublica data. It laid out a big chunk of that — $13.5 million — to promote Democrat Carrick Flynn's bid in an Oregon primary, which the former researcher in artificial intelligence lost.
Crypto exchange boss Bankman-Fried has urged lawmakers to bring more federal oversight to the crypto industry, given concerns about scams. He believes that better regulation will draw more interest from institutions such as big banks to digital assets.
July and August are the busiest months for holding state primaries, though the season runs from March to September, ahead of the elections across 46 states in November.
Protect Our Future is not the only super PAC Bankman-Fried has given money to. He has dropped millions of dollars to other committees, including a $5 million contribution to Future Forward, a group that supported Joe Biden's presidential campaign.
He ranked 47th among top donors to outside spending groups during the 2020 election cycle and is 27th in 2022 so far, according to OpenSecrets.