The downfall of FTX affected an array of people in different ways. Ultimately, the entire industry was impacted by this debacle. Kevin O’Leary, the host of Shark Tank was one among them. However, he failed to bag the $15 million that the exchange had paid him to be its spokesperson.
O’Leary has been making a lot of comments about FTX lately. However, appearing in an interview with CNBC, the Shark Tank host said,
“Total deal was just under $15 million, […] I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that’s what I’ve lost. It’s all at zero, I don’t know cos my account got scraped a couple of weeks ago. All the data, all the coins, everything.”
In addition to this, he also entailed more than $1 million of FTX equity. This, however, is deemed to be worthless thanks to the ongoing bankruptcy process.
While it seems like O’Leary was dipped in losses, he noted that this was a mere bad investment. He pointed out how he doesn’t “make good investments all the time.” Staying optimistic about it, the Shark Tank host revealed that he makes more good investments than bad ones. Sadly his inclination toward FTX was a bad one.
Will backlash against Kevin O’Leary ever stop?
Over the last couple of days, Mr. Wonderful has been a victim of immense backlash. As mentioned earlier, the downfall of FTX impacted the entire industry. A majority of the community continued to exhibit hate towards Sam Bankman-Fried. O’Leary on the other hand was seen defending SBF on multiple occasions.
Several mocked and called out O’Leary for this move. Binance’s CZ was the latest to join this list. He reminded the community and the Shark Tank host of what went down.
Additionally, O’Leary in the CNBC interview highlights the need for more due diligence. Further noting hoe wall the institutional investors in this deal look like “idiots”, he added,
“We relied on each other’s due diligence but we also relied on another investment theme that I felt drove a lot of interest in FTX. Sam Bankman-Fried is an American, his parents are American compliance lawyers. There were no other American large exchanges to invest in if you wanted to invest in infrastructure plays.”
CZ was alarmed by this statement as well. Responding to the same, the Binance CEO tweeted,