As collectors within the FTX chapter case look to claw again money from the fallen crypto big, an uncomfortable highlight is specializing in a well-connected Hollywood insider with ties to the Clintons, the Kardashians and Elon Musk.
Michael Kives — a former Tinseltown agent who has served as an aide to Invoice and Hillary Clinton, suggested Warren Buffett and helped with Kendall Jenner’s 818 Spirits — runs a enterprise agency referred to as K5 International that received $300 million earlier this yr from FTX’s now-defunct funding arm, Alameda Analysis, based on reviews.
FTX’s disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried and his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, additionally Alameda’s ex-CEO, plowed billions of dollars not solely into different crypto platforms but additionally media and leisure outfits. Recipients included Vox — which received a grant for a reporting venture — and the web information web site Semafor, which has confronted calls for that it return money it admitted it received from the 30-year-old Bankman-Fried in a $25 million funding spherical.
Nevertheless it’s FTX’s large funding in Kives’ agency that makes K5 International a juicier goal for collectors, insiders say. Chatter has likewise circulated that Kives had been selling FTX to his high-profile circle of buddies together with expertise brokers Scooter Braun — who has managed Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato — and Man Oseary, who has managed Madonna, U2 and the Pink Scorching Chili Peppers. Neither Oseary nor Braun responded to request for remark. Kives didn't reply to request for remark.
“In every single place I'm going I hear his identify,” one well-connected tech insider stated of Kives (pronounced “key-vess”).
As FTX’s new CEO John Ray III — a restructuring guru who helped type by the Enron mess — sifts by the bankrupt firm’s stability sheet, insiders say he might decide that FTX’s current investments quantity to fraudulent conveyance — the unlawful transferring of property to place them past the attain of collectors — and are thus topic to clawbacks.
“The brand new administration is 100% going to go after anyone who received paid by FTX,” one other insider near the scenario stated. “It’s nicely inside the statute of limitations to claw the K5 property again.”
“They'll 100% go after Kives to get the cash again,” the supply added.
Including to the intrigue: Kives is a detailed private buddy of Musk. When the Tesla billionaire stays in Los Angeles, he typically crashes at Kives’ Beverly Hills mansion, based on the New York Occasions.
K5 International has been a serious backer of corporations based by Musk. In response to the Monetary Occasions, at the very least $225 million of K5 International’s property are sitting in SpaceX, the Boring Co. and different Musk-led ventures.
It’s unclear whether or not Musk’s corporations could possibly be topic to the clawbacks, or whether or not any of the money given to his corporations initially got here from FTX, sources stated. Nevertheless, when Musk was securing Twitter financing in April, Kives texted Musk, “It could possibly be cool to do that with Sam Bankman-Fried,” based on a trove of textual content messages that had been launched throughout the Delaware Court docket of Chancery case between Musk and Twitter.
Musk has denied a Semafor report claiming that the Bankman-Fried owned $100 million in Twitter, and referred to as out co-founder Ben Smith for failing to reveal how a lot Bankman-Fried, often known as SBF, invested in his personal firm.
Kives labored as an agent at Artistic Artists Company the place he represented purchasers together with Kate Hudson, Warren Buffett, Bruce Willis and Jessica Alba. From there, he struck out on his personal as an investor and launched K5 International, backing Silicon Valley giants together with Uber, Airbnb and Bumble, based on the corporate’s web site.
However Kives’ ties lengthen past Hollywood. A longtime Clinton ally, Kives has helped increase tens of hundreds of thousands for Hilary Clinton. Kives was an interim spokesperson for President Invoice Clinton after he left workplace in 2003; he then served alongside Huma Abedin in Senator Hillary Clinton’s DC workplace, based on a bio Kives posted on-line.
Now, Kives could quickly be getting calls from one other type of fundraiser — a brand new FTX CEO who makes a speciality of collections.
“The entire motive you appoint a restructuring man is to get better cash for collectors and traders,” one lawyer near the scenario advised The Publish.
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