A week before the FTX filed for bankruptcy, Beto O’Rourke decided to return their million-dollar donation. O’Rourke’s team denied allegations that the refund of one of his campaign’s largest checks was related to the scandal.
Unsolicited Donation
Sam Bankman Fried’s donation was returned four days before the election. According to Chris Evans, O’Rourke’s campaign spokesperson, they are unconnected to the issues that FTX’s founder is facing.
Evans stated that they received the money as a surprise because Bankman-Fried had not informed them that a large sum of money would be donated to O’Rourke’s campaign and that it was unsolicited, according to a source.
Bankman-Fried was O’Rourke’s top donor from July 1 to Sept. 29, but despite his contribution, O’Rourke was a hugely influential fundraiser, raising around $77 million for the rest of the campaign. At least three other seven-figure donors supported O’Rourke, which included Democratic mega-donor George Soros.
A source added that FTX’s director of engineering Nishad Singh, donated $100,000 to O’Rourke’s campaign, but they did not confirm if they also returned the money.
Filed Bankruptcy and Under Investigation
FTX, a $32 billion company, declared bankruptcy, and the announcements come just days after its rival Binance backed out of a proposed acquisition.
Former billionaire CEO Sam Bankman-Fried resigned and requested $6 billion to $8 billion in liquidity relief after customers rushed to withdraw their assets from the company.
The Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated FTX and its CEO and founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, to evaluate whether any criminal action or securities violations were engaged.
Following the issue in FTX, cryptocurrency lender BlockFi filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection just days after canceling withdrawals in the aftermath of FTX’s bankruptcy filing. As a result, BlockFi currently has approximately $257 million in cash on hand.
