Shark Tank Star Kevin O’Leary, Loses $15M as FTX Spokesperson

O’Leary, the Shark Tank star reveals that the fallen crypto exchange FTX paid him $ 15 million to be its spokesman.
Kevin O’Leary ranks SBF as one of the best traders and says that in case of another venture he would hesitate to shake hands with Sam-Bankman.

In a Thursday interview with CNBC, Mr. Wonderful, O’Leary made it public that the once $3.2 billion dollar cryptocurrency exchange FTX paid him a whopping $15 million last year just to be the spokesperson for the exchange.

Speaking at the Squawk box, the Shark Tank star, Kevin O’Leary further revealed that he also had over $1 million of FTX equity. The numbers are now rendered worthless due to the bankruptcy protection process, it is not yet confirmed whether investors will have their assets refunded.

What’s more, Mr. Wonderful explained that the balance of a little over $4 million was purportedly eaten up by taxation and agent fees.

Total deal was just under $15 million, all in … I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that’s what I lost. I don’t know. It’s all at zero.

He admitted.

Despite Mr.Wonderful losing millions of dollars in the FTX slump, he has insisted that Bankman-Fried is one of the best traders in the crypto space and that he would have SBF on his team in case of another venture. O’Leary insisted that he is not scared of investing in entrepreneurs that have massive failures as “failure is often the best teacher.”

I am not scared of investing in entrepreneurs that have had catastrophic failures. Failure is often the best teacher.

— Kevin O'Leary aka Mr. Wonderful (@kevinolearytv) December 8, 2022

During another interview with Yahoo Finance on Dec. 6, O’Leary stated that SBF should be treated as innocent until proven guilty as he called for FTX to be audited in the wake of its collapse. O’Leary believes that the truth about FTX can be discovered thanks to the unique nature of blockchain technology.

Blockchain technology might save SBF from imprisonment and might also put him behind bars. All transactions in the blockchain are 100% auditable, once the audit is performed, anyone who broke the law will be prosecuted.

Bankman-Fried has insisted that he did not knowingly commit fraud. Like O’Leary, billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman similarly said he believes SBF was telling the truth. This has shocked the crypto industry since most people believe that Bankman-Fried is a fraud and a conman. Some have compared the FTX meltdown to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.