Patrick Hillman, director of strategy of Binance, has stated that Sam Bankman-Fried had been spreading false and even racist rumors about Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao prior to the collapse of FTX.
Hillman referenced an article in Puck magazine, which provided an account of the debacle from the perspective of Anthony Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital.
Hillman said:
“One thing the writers missed was that Sam constantly spread false rumors about Zhao because portraying him as an ‘evil Chinese’ was critical to the scam. You can’t claim to be Luke Skywalker without Darth Vader.”
Scaramucci had met Bankman-Fried in 2021, and soon after, FTX had acquired a stake in SkyBridge for $30 million and the hedge fund had bought FTT exchange tokens for $10 million, which are now nearly worthless.
The partners had undertaken a business trip to the Middle East shortly before FTX had encountered trouble in November 2022 and Scaramucci had attempted to draw in new investments.
A colleague that was present in the negotiations had informed Scaramucci of Bankman-Fried’s inappropriate practice of spreading gossip about the head of Binance.
