Sam Bankman-Fried bought an analytics firm focused on helping the political campaigns of the US Democrats, according to a report. The disgraced founder of the bankrupt cryptocurrency platform FTX, who has been hiding out in Bahamas, made the purchase over the summer, Fox News reported.
The FTX founder bought Deck, which is a startup firm aimed at providing Democratic campaigns with predictive analytics and voter targeting capabilities, the report added.
Bankman-Fried, who is at the heart of the biggest crypto meltdown and is accused of siphoning off a vast chunk of investor money into personal accounts, spent as much as $5 million to make the purchase, Puck News said.
The report also says that SBF told Deck founder Max Wood that his investment will offer financial stability to the startup even as he bought out all existing investors in the company.
While he made the investment, the crypto founder got in return access to key information from the Democratic National Committee, the report added. “At Deck, we help progressive campaigns and organizations reach the right voters … To do that, we’ve developed models that predict who a voter will support, how elastic that support might be, how a voter might cast their ballot, and more,” the CEO said.
“Then, to make those predictions actionable, we’ve built software that guides users through the process of building great lists for persuading voters, mobilizing supporters, and raising campaign funds across a range of outreach tactics,” he added.
The report also says that by purchasing Deck, Bankman-Fried was plotting an entry into politics. It was also reported that SBF spent a whopping $40 million on Democratic candidates who contested the midterm elections. He also pledged spending $1 billion in the run-up to the 2024 election, the report says.
