According to SBF, so potentially unreliable source:
> “I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties,” Bankman-Fried told the crypto commentator and citizen journalist Tiffany Fong.
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” he said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
This isn't terribly different from the pattern we see with a lot of tech companies where direct employee donations often favor Democrats but donations to PACs which then support candidates have the opposite trend (varying in degree based on the industry and balance of power where the company's interests lie).
At this point it would be naive to take at face value anything SBF said about his money. Financially speaking, he appears to be the world's biggest liar of 2022.
> direct employee donations often favor Democrats but donations to PACs which then support candidates
Rather than speculating, we could alternatively choose to look at some numbers:
I’m aware that he publicly donated to Democratic PACs. I was just trying to illustrate that there’s considerable precedent for someone being strategic about which donations they think will be unpopular with their friends, customers, employees, etc.
Given that he basically ran a money laundering machine this is extremely plausible - the amounts which various people reportedly embezzled would be plenty to fund a ton of PAC spending and it’ll take forensic accountants years to figure out whether that happened.
> “I donated to both parties. I donated about the same amount to both parties,” Bankman-Fried told the crypto commentator and citizen journalist Tiffany Fong.
> “All my Republican donations were dark,” he said, referring to political donations that are not publicly disclosed. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons, it’s because reporters freak the fuck out if you donate to Republicans. They’re all super liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/nov/30/ftx-billi...
This isn't terribly different from the pattern we see with a lot of tech companies where direct employee donations often favor Democrats but donations to PACs which then support candidates have the opposite trend (varying in degree based on the industry and balance of power where the company's interests lie).