Democratic billionaire Sam Bankman-Fried, the 30-year-old founder of cryptocurrency exchange FTX, said in a podcast interview that he was planning to spend “north of $100 million” with a “soft ceiling” of $1 billion backing Democrats in 2024. A $1 billion would greatly exceed spending records, at least in “hard money”—dollars given to candidates, parties, PACS, and other groups that report to the Federal Election Commission. The late Republican Sheldon Adelson currently holds the record for hard money spent in a single election cycle; in 2020, he and his wife donated $218 million, according to Open Secrets. Bankman-Fried specified that his political spending plans depend on the 2024 landscape, and said his spending would likely go up in Trump ran.
