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The Excruciating Toll of Elon's Stunts

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CHAPTER

FTX

How could people have caught it when you think about things like that? At one point, Matt Levine said, this sounds like a Ponzi's game. And so they hadn't been keeping records. They have not, they had been spending it on bomb a real estate, Bahamas real estate and everything like that.

00:00
Speaker 4
And so they hadn't been keeping records. They have not, they had been spending it on bomb a real estate, Bahamas real estate and everything
Speaker 3
like that. How could people have caught it when you think about things like that? At one point, Matt Levine said, this sounds like a Ponzi's game. I think that's the toughest. Many of the interviews have gotten and he's like, yeah, it kind of is like, like, which was, ha ha versus is how would you have found this out? It's really, it's a really interesting question. And that's the one, I think it's an important question to, you know, I remember when Elizabeth Holmes was on all the covers we never had her on and because I didn't understand it.
Speaker 4
And that's how I felt about him. I was
Speaker 8
like,
Speaker 3
I don't understand this quite right. I don't get it. I don't get it. I don't know who's minding the store. I don't know these people, which was lucky on my part in a lot of ways, not, not press janted anyway.
Speaker 1
Well, it was, it was a total black box. Right. I mean, it was, you know, offshore in the Bahamas where the venue shopped specifically to be there to be sort of free regulation. And then, but then, you know, he did things that, that, you know, ended up pissing off his brethren in the crypto space, right? Right. Trying to seek out regulation and try to, you know, testify in Washington, all of which, you
Speaker 3
know, make them look better. Well,
Speaker 1
or maybe kind of manipulate it and give them all this money to democratic politicians and to try to sort of get the regulation that FTX could live with or wanted, you know, pissing off CZ at Binance. And of course that became, you know, the tipping point, right? Because, you know, CZ had been a early investor and FTX wanted his investment back. You know, that clever Sam paid him back with, you know, the token, the FTT token that they had manufactured and propped up and he had 500 million of it. Well, you know, basically that was a gun that he had to Sam's head, just like, you know, the Chinese are our largest creditor if they wanted to flood the world with dollars. I mean, you know, that would probably have an effect on the value of the dollar. So CZ decides to say he will flood the market with, you know, FTT tokens that are rendered right and completely worthless. And so that, that, you know, brought the whole house of cards down. Well, and also Carolyn Ellison, I thought she was a poker player, but apparently not. She
Speaker 3
set a price and the minute she said that
Speaker 1
price, the dogs came, right?

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