Sam Bankman-Fried dined with Jared Kushner and Saudi crown prince in bid for funds: report
David McAfee
April 27, 2023

Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced former FTX CEO, reportedly went to a dinner with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Jared Kushner, as he sought funding to save his company.

Bankman-Fried asked his new friend, former Trump admin official Anthony Scaramucci, to arrange a trip to Saudi Arabia to try to raise capital for FTX, according to Puck. Bankman-Fried was slapped with another indictment in March, alleging a bribe to a Chinese official.

During that trip with Scaramucci, there was a dinner at which Kushner was present.

"The Mooch had a relatioship with Mohammed bin Salman, who invited the two for dinner at his palace," Puck reported.

“Sam wanted to go in a T-shirt and shorts,” Scaramucci told Puck, “so we had to have a conversation about that."

"The Mooch, whose sister is a personal shopper at Bloomingdale’s, bought S.B.F. a suit to wear to dinner at the palace," the outlet reported

As the story goes, there was a choice spread of food, and the event itself was swimming in big names.

"It was quite a dinner. There was tons of food—lamb, meat, fruit, pita bread and hummus—and polite conversation. Steve Schwarzman and Ray Dalio were there, as were Steve Mnuchin and Jared Kushner," according to Puck's piece. "Dalio spoke about his vision for China. Kushner said nothing. It was more or less a social occasion, not a place for business chatter. The Mooch and S.B.F. had already made their pitch, earlier that afternoon, to both the Saudi sovereign wealth fund and the Saudi venture capital fund, and they had received an indication that the Saudis were willing to invest some $250 million in the new FTX funding round, subject to due diligence, which they had agreed to do in the Bahamas at the end of November."

The Mercury News also picked up the story, noting that Bankman-Fried, "the mop-haired entrepreneur," was "desperately trying to raise $1 billion from some of the region's most ruthless but wealthy leaders."

"From Scaramucci’s description, it doesn’t sound as though Bankman-Fried had any concerns about immersing himself in a morally dubious situation involving Mohammed, Kushner and Saudi government money," the outlet said. "The crown prince is known as an autocratic ruler, held responsible by the CIA for ordering the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi."