Behind SBF’s Campaign of ‘Excessive’ Spending

Early last year, Sam Bankman-Fried attended a dinner, alongside Hillary Clinton, Jeff Bezos and Leonardo DiCaprio, at the house of investor Michael Kives, co-founder of the firm K5. Kives, Bankman-Fried wrote to his colleagues at FTX shortly afterwards, was “the most connected person I’ve ever met.”

Bankman-Fried told his colleagues in a written pitch, published in court this week in Bankman-Fried’s trial on fraud charges, that FTX should invest in K5 because a relationship with the investor could give FTX “essentially infinite connections.” The episode, which led to FTX putting $300 million into K5, highlights how Bankman-Fried spent millions on flashy deals to help juice FTX’s reputation.