Investor Kevin O’Leary, also known as a Shark Tank star, has publicly shared that he somehow lost almost all of the $15 million paid to him to be the official spokesperson for the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
O’Leary was a guest on a recent episode of CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” CNBC asked him about the risks involved in investing and promoting the platform, and O’Leary was questioned about his failure to properly assess the risks. He had fallen prey to groupthink, but none of his investment partners had lost money, O’Leary explained.
Kevin O’Leary stated that he was paid $15 million to promote FTX. But after paying taxes, agency fees, a $1 million equity investment in FTX, and $10 million to get back the cryptocurrencies stuck on the FTX exchange, he’s left with nothing.
According to Kevin O’Leary’s statement, the deal was just under $15 million, and had invested roughly $9.7 million into the FTX platform. Kevin O’Leary, whose FTX account was scrapped, has nothing left at the moment. It wasn’t a good investment, O’Leary explained, but it wasn’t always a good investment either. It just had more good investments than bad ones.
Kevin O’Leary was one of the celebrities who aggressively promoted FTX online. In his first presentation, he mentioned that the feature of FTX that attracted him to invest was its compatibility systems. In fact, Kevin O’Leary mentioned on LinkedIn and in his tweet that was shared in August 2021 but later deleted that he finally solved the compatibility issues with cryptocurrencies.
According to the shared information, FTX investors also filed a class action lawsuit against many celebrities who promote this platform, especially SBF, the founder and former CEO of FTX. These celebrities include Kevin O’Leary, Golden State Warriors, Shaquille O’Neal, Udonis Haslem, David Ortiz, and Naomi Osaka.
