Media firm Semafor is underneath fireplace over Sam Bankman-Fried's funding.
Semafor
Semafor, a information web site launched final month after getting a big infusion of money from disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, has come underneath fireplace for staying mum about whether or not it should return the now-bankrupt crypto agency’s cash.
Bankman-Fried was reportedly an preliminary investor within the $25 million raised by Semafor’s founders — former Bloomberg Media CEO Justin Smith and former New York Instances media columnist and Buzzfeed editor in chief Ben Smith.
After FTX imploded and filed for chapter this month, there have been requires Semafor to return the money.
Semafor has not addressed the problem, stating to blogger Mickey Klaus that it's “monitoring the evolving state of affairs carefully.”
In his weblog put up entitled “Ship it Again Ben,” Klaus wrote: “That’s good, however really, I wasn’t fearful that Semafor wouldn’t be capable of maintain on to its Bankman bucks. The query extra is: Will Semafor give the cash again?”
He continued that “legally” the problem is murky, however that “morally,” it appears “open and shut.”
“Perhaps Bankman-Fried wasn’t a felon…..however the stench of sleaze and scamming is unmistakable and acquainted,” he wrote.
A Semafor rep didn't return The Submit’s request for remark.
Semafor’s credibility additionally got here into query after it printed an article about Bankman-Fried’s relationship with Elon Musk, claiming that the crypto CEO owned $100 million in Twitter since Musk took the corporate personal.
Musk denied the report and known as out Ben Smith for failing to reveal how a lot Bankman-Fried, often called SBF, invested in his firm.
“As I stated, neither I nor Twitter have taken any funding from SBF/FTX. Your article is a lie. Now, I’m asking once more, how a lot of you does SBF personal?” Musk tweeted Wednesday.
Ben Smith replied: “Such as you and plenty of others, we took an funding from him. We now have lined him aggressively, and disclose it each time we write about him.”
At launch in October, Semafor informed Reuters that it “raised $25 million from buyers together with David Bradley, proprietor of The Atlantic journal; Jessica Lessin, founding father of expertise web site Data; and cryptocurrency trade FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.”
As FTX unspooled, Bankman-Fried’s investments in different media corporations like ProPublica, Vox Media, The Intercept and The Regulation and Justice Venture had been revealed, leaving critics to query whether or not his cash impacted their protection.
“All of them took it,” Human Occasions Each day’s Jack Posobiec wrote on Twitter, “and none of them broke the story.”
Post a Comment