Washington Post Investigation: Before the FTX Collapse, SBF's Brother Invested Millions to Prevent a Pandemic

Original Title: 《Before FTX collapse, founder poured millions into pandemic prevention》

Author: Dan Diamond

Translation: Qianwen, ChainCatcher

Sam Bankman-Fried after this year's congressional hearing. According to an analysis by The Washington Post, since October 2021, he and his brother Gabe, along with their network, have invested at least $70 million in preventing the next pandemic. (Sarah Silbiger/Bloomberg)
In the spring of 2020, as COVID-19 struck and the world came to a halt, many mourned the loss of life, work, and normalcy.
At that time, 28-year-old cryptocurrency entrepreneur Sam Bankman-Fried and his 25-year-old brother Gabe, who worked in Congress, saw the pandemic as an opportunity to change the status quo.
Backed by the immense wealth created by SBF's cryptocurrency exchange FTX, they launched a project to allocate billions of dollars to pandemic prevention, an issue that had long been overlooked by Congress even during the COVID crisis. The initiative stemmed from the brothers' commitment to a philosophy called effective altruism, which seeks to maximize charitable donations in ways that can have the greatest impact.
Almost overnight, the Bankman-Fried family began making astonishing donations. The Washington Post found through research on lobbying group disclosures, federal records, and other sources that since October 2021, the brothers and their network have spent at least $70 million on research projects, campaign donations, and other initiatives aimed at improving biosafety and preventing the next pandemic.
However, according to interviews with more than twenty people who had collaborated with the Bankman-Fried brothers, received their grants, or joined their teams, FTX was revealed to have used customer funds to support the operations of its sister companies, leading to its sudden bankruptcy application last Friday and a series of financial repercussions that made their pandemic prevention agenda difficult to achieve.
SBF's massive funding had drawn comparisons to public health advocates like Bill Gates and political architects like George Soros, but some critics and former allies have now found more fitting comparisons—such as the disgraced Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, who vowed to revolutionize healthcare but became embroiled in scandal. A week ago, Washington lawmakers who supported Bankman-Fried's donations are now distancing themselves as regulators investigate his financial operations.
The fallout from FTX's collapse has reverberated throughout the public health sector, as many advocates for pandemic prevention had received funding from FTX backers or sought their donations.
Sam Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO last Friday, with his personal fortune evaporating by $16 billion in a week, and he did not respond to requests for comments from FTX and its former colleagues. On Tuesday night, he apologized for FTX's bankruptcy on Twitter and promised to prioritize repaying customers.
On Saturday, Gabe Bankman-Fried stated over the phone that he would return the call but did not respond to follow-up messages. He resigned as the director of the "Pandemic Prevention" (GAP) organization he founded in July 2020, which was funded by his brother.
New interim executive director Keenan Lantz said that the "Pandemic Prevention" organization is "proud" of the work they have done and hopes to continue the "momentum" for pandemic prevention.
Lantz stated in a press release, "While there is uncertainty about GAP's future, efforts must be made to prevent pandemics that are more severe than COVID-19, and we hope to commit to this cause in some way."
According to a review of funding announcements, political donations, and lobbying group disclosures, in the months leading up to FTX's collapse, the Bankman-Fried brothers and their network had been rapidly increasing their spending on pandemic prevention—record amounts and unconventional choices that sometimes shocked political and public health experts.
FTX-supported projects included: $12 million to support a voting initiative in California to strengthen public health programs and test for emerging viral threats (the measure was postponed to 2024 due to lack of support); over $11 million invested in congressional primary campaigns for biosafety experts in Oregon, which were unsuccessful; and even $150,000 to help Trump administration "Operation Warp Speed" vaccine accelerator scientific advisor Moncef Slaoui write a memoir.
The leaders of the FTX Future Fund resigned in an open letter last Thursday, acknowledging that some of the organization's donations had been put on hold; the fund is an affiliated foundation that promised over $25 million for biosafety crisis prevention.
The former leaders wrote, "We are sorry that the grants promised by the foundation will not be fulfilled, and we regret that things have come to this point."
The Future Fund's commitments included $10 million to HelixNano, a biotech startup seeking to develop the next generation of coronavirus vaccines; $250,000 to scientists at the University of Ottawa researching how to eliminate viruses from plastic surfaces; and $175,000 to support a recent law school graduate working at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.
"Overall, the Future Fund was a philanthropic endeavor," said Tom Inglesby, who leads the Johns Hopkins Center. "What they were doing was truly forward-thinking… building preparedness for pandemics and reducing the risk of biological threats."
SBF won favor in Washington, but his cryptocurrency empire collapsed.
According to anonymous sources, in addition to public health, the brothers also spent heavily on lobbyists, campaign, and political communication experts, getting close to power centers and meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and several officials from the Biden administration to promote their pandemic prevention agenda.
Over the past year, "Pandemic Prevention" spent over $1 million lobbying Congress and the White House, employing at least 26 lobbyists to advocate for a bipartisan pandemic plan that has yet to be implemented and other issues, running ads proposing legislation, including funding for pandemic preparedness. The two brothers also supported a political action committee called "Protect Our Future," which, according to the organization's website, spent about $28 million supporting Democratic candidates "who are poised to become advocates for pandemic prevention" during their dealings with Congress.
Luciana Borio, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations and an infectious disease expert, said, "The brothers worked hard to focus Congress's attention on bio-defense." In April, he spoke alongside the Bankman-Fried brothers at a pandemic prevention task force led by Democratic lawmakers.
Bankman-Fried's initiatives and campaign donations made him one of the top donors to the Democrats, bringing the brothers significant notoriety in Washington. Gabe—who worked for Congressman Sean Casten in February 2021, handling the junior lawmaker's constituent mail—quickly began meeting with senior Democrats like Pelosi, urging them to double down on pandemic legislation and increase funding for agencies like the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is dedicated to procurement related to medical countermeasures for crises.
Some officials and experts who received attention from the brothers expressed gratitude for their focus but noted their political immaturity. A well-known pandemic expert said, "I didn't feel they were very sophisticated or had a clear understanding of what they wanted to do." "They seemed earnest and well-intentioned, but without a clear set of goals."
Even before the collapse of FTX, SBF faced ongoing questions about whether his pandemic prevention agenda was merely a tool to win favor in Congress—then he would leverage it to achieve other goals, such as influencing cryptocurrency regulation.
"That skepticism is entirely reasonable," said a pandemic advisor to the Bankman-Fried family, "I am 100% sure Gabe cares about pandemics… I don't know how to view Sam."
Most of the brothers' public health work has now come to a halt. A series of political groups, health researchers, and even media organizations that received funding from them or their group are rethinking their next steps or cutting ties altogether. Many staff members declined to speak publicly, fearing that clients whose funds were destroyed by FTX might seek to reclaim the brothers' donations.
For example, insiders said that "Pandemic Prevention" had hired the conservative information organization FP1 Strategies' branch PLUS Communications to help establish its brand in Washington—this work suddenly stopped in the past week.
The FTX Future Fund provided $1.5 million in seed funding to Stanford University's Global Health Innovation Center in July, aimed at "promoting research and innovation to prepare for and prevent the next pandemic."
But after FTX's troubles, Stanford has rescinded this announcement. Michele Barry, a global health expert directing the Stanford center, said Bankman-Fried had consulted her on how to make an impact on pandemic prevention.
Barry wrote in a text message, "He is smart, thoughtful, and has a public spirit. He was personally involved and eager to use his funds to make a change."
In February, the Bankman-Fried family foundation also pledged $5 million to the nonprofit news organization ProPublica to support reporting focused on pandemic preparedness and biosafety, including an upfront delivery of one-third of the grant. This funding has supported some staff and articles. ProPublica was informed last week that the remaining two-thirds of the grant has been put on hold, which was confirmed by a spokesperson.
Entering Washington
The Bankman-Fried brothers grew up in an elite academic family, with a father who is a law professor at Stanford University and an aunt who is the dean of the Columbia University School of Public Health. They were exposed from a young age to debates on policy-making—such as watching their father battle tax lobbyists for simplified tax procedures—and began engaging in philanthropy early on.
Both brothers worked at the quantitative trading firm Jane Street Capital, but while Sam continued in finance, Gabe shifted to Washington, D.C., becoming a data expert for a progressive organization and serving as legislative correspondent for Casten, a scientist from Illinois who had just been elected to Congress in 2019. Two former colleagues from Casten's office recalled that Gabe Bankman-Fried made difficult attempts to automate office work, such as trying to establish a program to help Congress members automatically respond to constituent letters—given the unique nature of such letters, this goal was challenging to achieve. Casten's spokesperson stated that Gabe's departure was just normal staff turnover and declined to comment further.
Although the brothers largely withdrew from the public eye this week, they articulated their philosophy in interviews over the past two years. Bankman-Fried stated that while he is also concerned about the threats of advanced artificial intelligence and nuclear war, he is particularly worried about the arrival of a more deadly virus than COVID-19, which he sees as inevitable.
He often lamented the lack of sufficient motivation in Congress to address long-term issues like pandemic prevention. "The default is that nothing happens… the momentum for change must be strong enough to overcome inertia," he said in an 80,000-hour podcast in April, explaining why he spent millions supporting a candidate in Oregon's Democratic primary. "The amount spent in the primary is small. If you have ideas, you can make an impact."
However, his carefully chosen candidate in Oregon—Carrick Flynn, a political newcomer engaged in biosafety research—received less than 19% of the vote in the May primary, leading Sam Bankman-Fried to indicate he would reconsider future political strategies. "The marginal returns are diminishing," he told NBC's Chuck Todd in September.
Despite the setbacks, the Bankman-Fried family continued to expand their lobbying efforts for pandemic prevention in Washington. According to federal disclosure information and internal documents reviewed by the Post, they commissioned polling, sought to hire nationally recognized pandemic experts as consultants, and had numerous lobbyists in at least six organizations.
For example, "Pandemic Prevention" hired a lobbyist last year who had been a senior aide to Senator Joe Manchin III—even though this West Virginia Democrat cast a key vote blocking President Biden's "Build Back Better" legislation, which included billions for pandemic preparedness. This year, the organization also hired the Ridge Policy Group, a lobbying firm run by former Bush administration Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and recently hired Monument Advocacy, also led by former Bush administration Homeland Security officials.
However, even as the Bankman-Fried family's status in the public health sector rose, there were signs that the brothers felt overwhelmed. Gabe Bankman-Fried participated in a global health panel discussion hosted by Foreign Policy magazine in June, alongside infectious disease doctor Matthew Hepburn, who helped lead "Operation Warp Speed," and Hillary Carter, a biosafety expert from the White House National Security Council, who participated in the discussion online. When the two experts delved into pandemic preparedness and exchanged jargon, the host posed a "very simple" question to the third panel member—"What is Gabe Bankman-Fried most worried about every day?"
"Honestly, what worries me most is a pandemic that is more deadly than COVID-19," he replied, then repeatedly confirmed with other panel members, "In this group, there are national security experts more respected than I am."