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FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has vanished from the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after his estimated personal wealth plummeted nearly 94% to $991.5 million in a single day.
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao announced on Tuesday that he had inked a provisional agreement to acquire FTX after concerns mounted about the Bahamas-based exchange’s apparent insolvency, leading to a slowdown in withdrawals and freefall in the price of FTX’s native token.
Before his company’s cash crunch, Bankman-Fried was worth an estimated $15.2 billion, but according to Bloomberg, $14.6 billion was wiped out overnight.
READ MORE: A Q&A in plain English about Binance’s takedown of FTX
Bankman-Fried’s rapid rise to financial success, combined with his relative youth and eccentric personality – including his supposed penchant for sleeping on a beanbag in his office – made SBF one of the darlings of the crypto industry.
A self-described “effective altruist,” Bankman-Fried made big promises earlier this year to donate the majority of his fortune, at the time valued at $21 billion, to charity.
He also promised to spend up to $1 billion to support political candidates aligned with his broader mission of preparing for future pandemics.
Though Bankman-Fried spent approximately $40 million ahead of the midterm elections (with middling success), he later backed away from his promise, calling it “a dumb quote.”
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