By
Svetlana Soroka
April 18th, 2024
Through April, Bankman-Fried and Musk exchanged several messages. In one, Bankman-Fried shared a post about how blockchain could be integrated into Twitter.
According to texts revealed in Elon Musk‘s legal proceedings against Twitter, Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly considered buying the social media platform “for a while.” Additional reports claimed that William MacAskill, a top advisor and member of the SBF-funded FTX Future Fund, had attempted to arrange a meeting between Musk and the FTX CEO back in March to discuss the possibility of the two making a “joint effort” to buy Twitter.
According to the text message exhibits published online by New York Times reporter Kate Conger, MacAskill stated that Bankman-Fried was willing to contribute roughly $8-15 billion to the Twitter acquisition.
However, Michael Grimes, head of Global Technology Investment Banking, later told Musk that Bankman-Fried was only open to handing over $5 billion for a joint deal to share the Web2 company.
Grimes reportedly praised Bankman-Fried to the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, describing SBF as a “hyper genius and doer builder.”
Will MacAskill, who describes himself as an “altruist” and philosophy professor at Oxford University, first texted Musk about SBF’s interest in Twitter when Musk started purchasing Twitter shares and posting his discontent with the social media platform’s censoring practices in March.
Referring to a poll Musk tweeted about Twitter policy and free speech, MacAskill messaged Musk on March 29, writing: “I’m not sure if this is what’s on your mind, but my collaborator Sam Bankman-Fried has for a while been potentially interested in purchasing it and then making it better for the world.”
Bankman-Fried’s contact was offered by MacAskill, who advised Musk to get in touch with him if he were considering “a prospective cooperative effort in that area.”
In his text reply, Musk reportedly questioned whether Bankman-Fried possessed “huge amounts of money.” MacAskill subsequently replied that SBF had a market value of roughly $24 billion at the time and could be willing to provide as much as US$8 billion to US$15 billion in financing.
Through April, Bankman-Fried and Musk exchanged several messages. In one, Bankman-Fried shared a post about how blockchain could be integrated into Twitter. Jared Birchall, a partner and top advisor to Musk, also sent Musk a Bloomberg article referencing Bankman-Fried and his vision for blockchain and social media integration.
Musk later changed his mind, claiming he didn’t want to engage Bankman-Fried in a “laborious blockchain discussion.” “Blockchain Twitter isn’t possible, as the bandwidth and latency requirements cannot be supported by a peer-to-peer network, unless those ‘peers’ are absolutely gigantic, thus defeating the purpose of a decentralized network,” Musk told Grimes.