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Sam Bankman-Fried used to spend thousands of dollars on staff lunches, Fox Business reported.
Since FTX collapsed, reports have revealed the full extent of Bankman-Fried’s lavish lifestyle.
The disgraced crypto mogul previously said he planned to give almost all of his fortune away.
Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of crypto exchange FTX, used to spend thousands of dollars at a time at a bistro in the Bahamas, staff at the restaurant told Fox Business.
Bankman-Fried often spent $2,500 a day on lunch for himself and FTX staff, workers at Cocoplum, which is located just a short walk from FTX’s headquarters in Nassau, told the outlet.
Soup, the restaurant’s cheapest appetizer, costs $14 a bowl and entrees cost up to $75. Wine starts at $12 a glass.
Staff added that FTX employees used to bring guests in for lunch meetings, too. But FTX workers never returned for happy hour, a bartender told Fox Business.
“They’re geeks man,” he said. “They don’t hang out.”
Cocoplum staff told Fox Business that the restaurant was one of several that delivered lunch to the FTX HQ on a regular basis for a cost of about $10,000 a day. Bankman-Fried previously told Reuters that FTX provided its staff with free meals and an “in-house Uber-like” service to transport them around the island, and 10 of them lived together in a roughly $40 million luxury penthouse.
Bankman-Fried had touted himself as a believer in effective altruism, saying he was building up his fortune with the plan to give almost all of it away. Reuters reported that in 2021 he drew an annual salary of $200,000, declared $1 million in real estate assets, and spent $50,000 on personal expenses.
But since FTX collapsed earlier this month, reports have revealed the full extent of Bankman-Fried’s lavish lifestyle.
Reuters reported that FTX, senior executives at the company, and Bankman-Fried’s parents, bought at least 19 properties worth around $120 million in the Bahamas over the past two years, citing property records. This included close to $72 million spent on seven condominiums in a beachfront resort community, bought by a unit of FTX, per the outlet.
Despite telling Bloomberg in April that he didn’t want a yacht, Fox Business reported that Bankman-Fried owned a 52-foot yacht worth millions of dollars.
Comments he made to Vox after FTX collapsed suggest his support for effective altruism may have been at least partly a PR stunt.
The crypto mogul’s fortune once peaked at $26 billion, but has now been wiped out, Bloomberg reported. Bankman-Fried declined to answer Fox Business when asked if he used client assets to fund his purchases.