Someone Tell SBF—Donald Trump Only Pardons Winners
Sam Bankman-Fried is trying hard to get a get-out-of-jail card from Donald Trump. Unfortunately for him, the president of the United States doesn't like losers
Sam Bankman-Fried is once again facing the wrath of the crypto community following a post on X made from jail, giving an intellectual justification for the wave of government layoffs orchestrated by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
“I have a lot of sympathy for gov’t employees: I, too, have not checked my email for the past few (hundred) days,” SBF said jokingly before starting to state several reasons why firing employees is necessary.
The former head of a failed crypto exchange and now inmate in a New York State federal prison has launched a post-election support campaign for the current administration in hopes of getting a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
Despite the obvious attempt by the 32-year-old former billionaire to attain a presidential get-out-of-jail card, it is unlikely that he will succeed in getting one.
SBF Quest For Freedom
In an interview with the New York Sun published last week, the disgraced former billionaire claimed that he was wrongfully imprisoned and that FTX actually never went bankrupt. Instead, he argues, it was an excess of withdrawals that doomed it to collapse.
Currently serving a 25-year sentence for seven different fraud and conspiracy crimes, SBF said that the Biden administration was “incredibly difficult to work with” and showed his support for the Republican side of the political aisle and, most specifically, for Donald Trump.
"I know President Trump had a lot of frustrations with Judge Kaplan. I certainly did as well,” Bankman-Fried said about the judge who found him guilty and who also oversaw the case that found the current United States president liable for defamation regarding sexual assault allegations made in 2019 by author Elizabeth Jean Carroll.
A Mother’s Boy And No One Else's
On his second day in office, the president of the United States pardoned the founder of the underground online marketplace Silk Road, Ross Ulbricht.
Ulbritch is greatly admired by many in the crypto community and in circles that defend privacy and freedom to code.
Yet, unlike Ulbritch, the former head of FTX and Alameda Research isn’t popular - quite the contrary.
Sam Bankman-Fried is guilty, both in the eyes of the law and of the crypto community, of misappropriating billions of dollars that belonged to FTX users. While the funds have recently been given back to the exchange's users, it hasn’t positively impacted SBF’s popularity.
Once the former billionaire's post went online, social media was filled with negative comments and memes demeaning him and criticizing his attempt to come back.
Of all the reasons why Sam Bankman-Fried is unlikely to be pardoned, the most obvious is that Trump is a very popular “winner” who is notoriously famous for his desire to “win” at all times, while Sam is seen as a “loser” known for having been the center figure of a massive “failure.”
And no one likes him.