The Tucker Carlson Show - Sam Bankman-Fried on Life in Prison With Diddy, and How Democrats Stole His Money and Betrayed Him

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00:00:17.860 So, where are you?

00:00:20.580 Yeah, well, I'm in MDC, Portland, in a little side room.

00:00:27.500 How long have you been there?

00:00:30.000 I've been in prison for about, oh boy, what's it been now?

00:00:34.060 It's been about two years.

00:00:37.720 So, what's it like?

00:00:40.740 It's, I mean, it's sort of dystopian.

00:00:44.200 You know, the fortunate thing, the place I'm in, I'm not in sort of, I'm not in physical danger.

00:00:50.780 And, you know, frankly, a lot of the staff, they're trying to be helpful.

00:00:54.720 They're trying to, you know, do what they can, given the constraints.

00:00:58.180 But, you know, no one wants to be in prison.

00:01:02.560 And you can imagine what happens when you take sort of 40 people, you know, all of whom have been at least charged with crimes and walk them in a single room for years on end and throw out the key.

00:01:14.640 Which is, the most trivial things become all that people have left to care about.

00:01:22.360 Yes.

00:01:24.640 Have you had any problems?

00:01:26.160 Not of the sort of acute kind.

00:01:31.620 Like, I haven't had, you know, I haven't been attacked or anything like that.

00:01:36.040 I've had a lot of logistical problems.

00:01:38.680 And, you know, the biggest, frankly, was when I was on trial, trying to get access to legal work was nearly impossible.

00:01:45.040 I would, you know, on a typical trial day, they'd wake me up at 4 a.m.

00:01:51.780 I'd spend five hours in various buses, vans, and holding cells until my trial started in the morning.

00:02:00.980 Then trial straight through to 5 p.m., another four hours in holding cells and vans.

00:02:05.400 You know, I'd get back at 9 p.m., way after any access to legal work was cut off for the day.

00:02:11.960 So that was the biggest problem.

00:02:13.400 So what do you do all day when you're not on trial?

00:02:19.320 Well, it's a really good question because there's not a whole lot to do in person.

00:02:23.900 I read books.

00:02:25.160 I've, you know, started reading novels again.

00:02:28.340 I play some chess.

00:02:30.040 And I work on my legal case to the extent I can.

00:02:32.940 You know, there's appeal.

00:02:34.360 There are other things.

00:02:35.640 I do what work I can from in here on that.

00:02:39.000 But the lack of other meaningful things to spend my time on is one of the most,

00:02:43.400 kind of soul-crushing things about prison.

00:02:46.360 I got to say, we've never talked before, but obviously I've watched you from afar.

00:02:51.360 And I just also say I feel sorry for every man in prison, no matter what he's accused of or did.

00:02:56.480 I just I don't think we should be locking people away.

00:02:58.720 I know I guess we have to, but I feel sorry for everyone in prison.

00:03:01.660 I'll just say.

00:03:02.040 Call me liberal.

00:03:03.620 But you do seem kind of healthier and less jumpy, I have to say, after two years in prison.

00:03:11.600 You know, I've had a lot of time to reflect on how to communicate.

00:03:16.660 And in retrospect, you know, I was I think I was not effective at communicating, especially when the crisis first hit.

00:03:26.900 And, you know, in the months thereafter, I made a mistake I often make.

00:03:33.200 I get swept up in details and I forget to make the bigger picture.

00:03:38.260 You seem like you were just flying high on Adderall every time I saw you on TV.

00:03:45.740 You don't seem that way now, were you?

00:03:48.640 No, I wasn't.

00:03:49.820 But I was.

00:03:52.800 My mind was racing because there were, you know, a billion things to keep track of.

00:03:57.900 You know, we sort of typically I'd have and back when I was running FTX, you know, I go on to have an interview.

00:04:02.720 But, you know, while on the interview, there would be two issues I'd have to resolve with the company.

00:04:07.500 So I'd have sort of one eye on Slack open, responding to messages.

00:04:12.060 And I knew that I had something else I had to do right after the interview that I hadn't had time to prepare for yet that I was sort of preparing for in the back of my mind.

00:04:21.920 So maybe like the digital world is bad for us.

00:04:25.800 Is that I mean, like, what's what's your view of that?

00:04:28.100 You've been taken away from your phone.

00:04:29.680 So that's kind of big.

00:04:31.400 Yeah.

00:04:31.560 Oh, it is.

00:04:33.600 I I prefer having the digital world that, you know, at the end of the day, like it's but but I will say that when I say that it's less from a perspective of like enjoyment or or or, you know, pleasure or leisure.

00:04:47.920 And it's more from a perspective of productivity and ability to have impact in the world.

00:04:54.340 You know, from that perspective, it's so hard to do anything.

00:04:57.220 We don't have the digital world.

00:04:58.220 So, like, have you made friends there?

00:05:02.840 How do you are you hanging with Diddy?

00:05:04.700 I think he's in there with you.

00:05:06.540 He is.

00:05:07.260 He is.

00:05:08.340 And I it's I don't know.

00:05:10.360 You know, he's been kind.

00:05:12.940 The I've made some friends.

00:05:14.920 It's it's a weird environment.

00:05:16.200 You know, it's sort of a combination of a few other high profile cases and a lot of, you know, ex-gangsters or sort of, you know, alleged ex-gangsters.

00:05:27.880 Definitely alleged.

00:05:31.000 So what's Diddy like?

00:05:33.460 I.

00:05:35.160 You know, obviously, I've I've only seen one one piece of him, which is, you know, Diddy in prison.

00:05:43.060 And, you know, he's been kind to people in the unit.

00:05:46.340 He's been kind to me.

00:05:47.740 Um, it's also it's it's a position no one wants to be in.

00:05:51.940 You know, obviously, he doesn't.

00:05:53.260 I don't.

00:05:53.560 As you said, it's it's kind of a soul crushing place for the world in general.

00:06:00.500 Um, and.

00:06:02.860 You know, what we see are just the people that that are around us on the inside rather than.

00:06:08.660 Yeah.

00:06:09.600 We are on the outside.

00:06:11.440 Oh, I'm sure.

00:06:12.980 And I mean, you're two of the most famous prisoners in the world in the same unit.

00:06:16.720 What is what are the other what are you like?

00:06:18.360 What are the armed robbers think?

00:06:20.460 Well, it's a really interesting question.

00:06:22.500 And if.

00:06:23.680 Of course, some of them, I think, are thinking like, wow, this is sort of a big opportunity,

00:06:29.480 like, you know, to meet people they wouldn't otherwise get to meet, which is.

00:06:35.760 It shocked me.

00:06:37.480 Right.

00:06:38.000 It makes sense.

00:06:38.840 Their perspective.

00:06:39.440 But like, boys, I know not how I think about prison.

00:06:44.660 Sorry.

00:06:45.520 Sorry to laugh.

00:06:46.200 No, that's such a good.

00:06:47.200 I bet it's not how you think about it.

00:06:48.520 No, it's not.

00:06:49.440 And laughing is all you can do sometimes.

00:06:51.240 You know, there's there's no better alternative.

00:06:53.360 Um, they're good at chess.

00:06:55.060 That's one thing I learned.

00:06:56.280 Like, you know, former armed robbers who don't speak English.

00:07:01.740 Um, and you probably didn't graduate middle school are a surprising number of them are like

00:07:08.420 fairly good at chess.

00:07:09.680 Like, you know, not, I'm not saying they're grandmasters, but like, you know, I lose games

00:07:13.940 to them all the time.

00:07:15.240 Um, I was not expecting that.

00:07:18.940 Wow.

00:07:19.300 So how is it?

00:07:20.760 That's so interesting.

00:07:21.920 How has that changed your, your views?

00:07:26.120 Well, you know, I would say it's part of a larger whole, which, you know, it's one of

00:07:31.760 the most sort of profound things that I've come to learn over my life, but still something I

00:07:36.260 don't fully understand, which is obviously, you know, what we call intelligence or IQ or

00:07:41.460 whatever.

00:07:42.460 It matters.

00:07:43.360 It's important.

00:07:44.860 Um, uh, working hard matters.

00:07:46.960 It's important.

00:07:47.940 But there are other things, things that we don't have good words for.

00:07:50.900 I still haven't found the right words for, but things that can make someone an unbelievably

00:07:56.100 impressive and successful and productive person, um, that seemed to kind of outshine

00:08:03.260 what I or others would expect of them.

00:08:07.380 And obviously it's not everyone, you know, everyone's in different places, but, you know, 0.99

00:08:13.320 something we saw a lot at FTX, we'd find someone with an absolutely shit resume. 0.94

00:08:16.940 I mean, just nothing to recommend themselves, no real relevant experience. 0.95

00:08:22.360 And all of a sudden we'd realize they were outperforming almost everyone else at the

00:08:26.500 company, just because they had the grit, they had the instincts, you know, they had

00:08:31.400 the dedication, they, they knew how to work, um, how to interface with others and how to

00:08:38.600 see solutions to problems.

00:08:41.500 Yeah. 1.00

00:08:42.020 I mean, I've known on the flip side, a number of extremely stupid people have gotten rich 1.00

00:08:45.440 in finance. 0.99

00:08:46.080 They're clearly have a kind of brilliance that I can't see.

00:08:48.980 Yeah. 1.00

00:08:49.400 They seem like morons to me. 1.00

00:08:50.580 I'm, I'm interested in what types there are. 0.99

00:08:53.620 I, I was on Wall Street in a former life and there are a variety of people there.

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00:11:23.760 So, I mean, big picture, without getting into all the details of your case, but it does seem like you guys made a decision at your company to form political alliances through political donations, which is not singling you out.

00:11:41.420 You're hardly the only businessman who's done that.

00:11:44.140 It's actually kind of par now.

00:11:46.420 But you gave so much to Democrats that I kind of thought they would rescue you in the end.

00:11:51.200 Where were all your friends in the Democratic Party?

00:11:53.140 They usually keep their friends from going to jail.

00:11:55.260 Tony Podesta never went to jail.

00:11:56.560 Why did you?

00:11:58.060 Oh, it's a really good question.

00:12:00.060 Obviously, I can only guess with the answer to that.

00:12:02.200 I can only speculate because I'm not in their minds.

00:12:04.560 But, you know, one fact that might be relevant is, you know, in 2020, I was kind of center-left and I gave to Biden's campaign.

00:12:16.200 I was optimistic he'd be a sort of solid center-left president.

00:12:22.760 I spent the next few years in D.C. a lot.

00:12:25.820 I mean, made dozens of trips there and was really, really shocked by what I saw.

00:12:31.440 Not in a good direction from the administration.

00:12:35.180 By late 2022, I was giving to Republicans privately as much as Democrats.

00:12:39.680 Democrats, and that started becoming known right around FTX's collapse.

00:12:48.120 So, I probably played a role.

00:12:51.780 Why were you shocked?

00:12:53.240 I know you spent a lot of time in D.C.

00:12:54.820 There are pictures of you with, you know, everyone.

00:12:56.720 You met everybody.

00:12:57.660 What was shocking about it?

00:12:59.600 Some of it was just more extreme versions of what I worried about.

00:13:04.740 Crypto regulation is a good example.

00:13:06.360 You know, I never thought that, frankly, the Democrats in general would be the party taking the lead on good financial regulation.

00:13:15.360 But, you know, there were good and bad people in each party and a lot of thoughtful players.

00:13:20.680 But Gensler's SEC was something out of a nightmare.

00:13:25.300 You know, a company would go offer something to the United States.

00:13:29.360 Gensler would sue them to the ground for not registering.

00:13:32.080 So, go to Gensler to register.

00:13:34.240 Say, hey, you know, we'd love to register.

00:13:35.680 So, obviously, that's what you want.

00:13:37.000 Why don't we register as?

00:13:38.300 And the SEC would say, well, wow, there's nothing for you to register as.

00:13:41.140 We don't have any ideas.

00:13:43.120 And there's just no solution.

00:13:45.440 They required licenses that they didn't know how to give.

00:13:48.380 And every company in crypto ran into this.

00:13:50.340 You know, they basically failed to register a single-person effort.

00:13:53.120 So, that was, like, one pretty disturbing thing that I saw.

00:14:00.260 And, you know, go for it.

00:14:03.220 So, can I just ask you to explain a little bit there?

00:14:06.060 It's obvious to non-experts like me that, you know, Gary Gensler is obviously corrupt.

00:14:10.100 I mean, that was clear.

00:14:10.740 Right.

00:14:10.880 But it was his motives were less clear.

00:14:13.220 Like, what was that?

00:14:15.160 What was his goal?

00:14:18.020 It's a really good question.

00:14:19.460 And, again, I'm not in his brain.

00:14:22.340 But here were some impressions I had.

00:14:24.360 You know, he really liked being in the center of things.

00:14:31.620 Power.

00:14:32.640 Everyone likes that.

00:14:33.980 Not everyone.

00:14:34.420 Most people.

00:14:35.440 He's no exception.

00:14:37.420 You know, part of this is a turf war.

00:14:38.580 He wanted his agency to get more power.

00:14:41.060 Even if he didn't want to do anything with it except block industries.

00:14:46.360 You know, why did he make everyone register with him while he loses power otherwise?

00:14:52.020 Even if he didn't know what to do with them.

00:14:54.360 You know, he had – there are lots of stories about him, you know, being very politically ambitious and feeling like if he could, you know, get on CNBC enough, make a big enough stink about things, raise his profile that, you know, maybe he'd be treasury secretary, something like that in the future.

00:15:11.840 I mean, he was remarkably successful.

00:15:13.700 Like, he became sort of one of the few faces of democratic financial regulation.

00:15:23.740 Interesting.

00:15:24.580 That sounds right to me.

00:15:26.060 I mean, those sound like Washington-type goals.

00:15:28.700 I've seen those before.

00:15:30.200 Right.

00:15:30.400 So –

00:15:31.300 It wasn't moral.

00:15:32.280 It's not like he had, like, deeply rooted communist beliefs or anything like that.

00:15:36.400 Right.

00:15:36.720 No, no, I knew that.

00:15:38.120 Right.

00:15:38.520 No, no, it's not like – or any beliefs.

00:15:41.060 Self-advancement.

00:15:42.060 So when things started to go south and you were criminally charged or thought you might be criminally charged, you know, you've given so much money to the Democratic Party that I think it's pretty – leaving aside moral judgment here.

00:15:55.240 But it's pretty normal in business for the donor to call the person he's donating to and saying, hey, I'm in trouble.

00:16:00.440 Can you help me?

00:16:01.740 Did you call Schumer or any of the people you had supported and say, you know, hey, I need your help?

00:16:07.140 It's the Biden Justice Department.

00:16:08.460 Help me.

00:16:08.820 I didn't, for multiple reasons.

00:16:12.140 One was, you know, I didn't want to do something inappropriate.

00:16:17.200 A second was I – that many parts of it very quickly made their positions known and were running away as quickly as they could.

00:16:28.340 But, you know, I had a good relationship, probably better with Republicans in D.C. as with Democrats by that point in time, although that wasn't public thought.

00:16:40.340 It wouldn't have been easy to see that from the outside.

00:16:44.220 And at the end of the day, there's a long story here.

00:16:48.460 It involves a law firm that took a pretty unusual and active role in the case.

00:16:53.440 But before I even gave up control of FTX, before it was ever filed for bankruptcy, the DOJ had already made up its mind.

00:17:04.860 And so there was – you didn't call in any favors or try to?

00:17:08.580 No.

00:17:10.940 Interesting.

00:17:13.560 What do you think of the future of crypto?

00:17:17.780 I mean, obviously, you must have complicated feelings since you were in a crypto company or in jail because of it.

00:17:23.880 But you know a lot about the topic.

00:17:26.660 You sort of feel like things are moving very fast on crypto.

00:17:31.900 Do you think they're moving in a good direction?

00:17:33.840 I know it's sort of weird to ask you this question, but I can't resist.

00:17:37.420 No.

00:17:39.300 Hopefully is what I would say.

00:17:41.260 You know, you look at what the Trump administration said, you know, going into office.

00:17:46.560 There are a lot of good things.

00:17:47.620 There are a lot of things that, you know, were very different from the stance that the Biden administration took, that, you know, Gensler and the SEC took.

00:17:55.820 Obviously, you know, the follow-through is what matters.

00:17:58.500 And that's the stage that we're at now, which is what will come of this.

00:18:01.640 And, I mean, not surprisingly, like, changing the guard helps.

00:18:10.160 But financial regulators, they're big, giant bureaucracies in the federal government.

00:18:15.620 They're not used to changing overnight.

00:18:18.960 And they have been playing a really obstructive role for, you know, a decade in crypto.

00:18:27.600 You know, the U.S., it's 30% of the world's finance.

00:18:30.680 It's about 5% of the world's crypto.

00:18:32.220 And the reason it's entirely regulatory.

00:18:35.600 It's just the U.S. was unique in its difficulty to work with.

00:18:40.040 So I think the big question is, will, you know, when rubber meets the road, like, will the administration do what needs to be done and figure out how to do it?

00:18:50.760 I mean, I remember when the concept of crypto first arrived in the popular press, and the whole idea was that this was a currency that could restore to the individual his freedom of commerce.

00:19:06.880 I get to buy and sell things without the government controlling me, and I could do it privately.

00:19:11.640 It would restore my privacy as well.

00:19:14.020 And that obviously has never happened.

00:19:16.920 It doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen.

00:19:18.520 And I don't hear anybody say it anymore.

00:19:20.260 And now it just seems like it's kind of another asset scam.

00:19:24.120 Whatever happened to – I mean, these are broad brush statements, but whatever happened to the privacy thing?

00:19:30.380 It's a really good question.

00:19:31.600 And there's sort of a related thing about the technology, right?

00:19:34.780 Payments, remittances, like all the things that are not just an investment, but ways that crypto could actually be useful for the world.

00:19:44.240 You know, they happen on longer timescales than investments do, basically.

00:19:47.640 You know, with what social media has become, you see bubbles, you know, grow and pop and grow and pop on a daily to monthly basis.

00:19:57.200 Technology is built out on a decade basis.

00:19:59.700 So, you know, right now, crypto is not quite at a point where it could become an everyday tool of, you know, a quarter of the world or something.

00:20:11.180 The tech isn't there yet, but it's not that far away.

00:20:14.520 And if – and this is an if – if the industry keeps making progress rather than getting distracted too much by market prices, then, you know, five, ten years from now, you can imagine a world where all of a sudden it is the case that anyone can have a crypto wallet.

00:20:31.740 You know, you know, a billion people could use it each day with privacy, with security, fast, cheap, international, all the things that, you know, that was promised and that absolutely get – are distracted from by the latest meme points.

00:20:48.800 You think world governments would allow that?

00:20:53.260 I mean, if you actually allowed the world's population to conduct financial transactions without the control of governments, then governments would collapse instantly, wouldn't they?

00:21:04.540 Well, it's an interesting question.

00:21:08.080 And there are a lot of degrees here about the level of oversight and control that a government have.

00:21:13.280 You look at something like Bitcoin and the wallets are anonymous, but there is a public ledger of every transfer that happens.

00:21:20.420 So it is possible for governments to have some level of knowledge without having control of it.

00:21:29.020 That being said, not all the governments in the world view this the same.

00:21:33.820 And the United States government over the last 30 years has taken one view towards control of, you know, the – not just the United States, frankly, but the world's monetary, you know, dealings.

00:21:47.600 And you see, I mean, a different viewpoint, much more authoritarian, but also much more insular in a lot of sort of dictatorships.

00:21:57.600 But half the world doesn't try to have nearly the level of government involvement in day-to-day financial transactions that the United States has.

00:22:08.560 So the people who built this country built it because they wanted freedom.

00:22:11.400 One word, freedom.

00:22:12.320 They wanted freedom from oppressors who forced them to buy overpriced tea, then blockaded them when they tried to dump it into the ocean.

00:22:18.880 How'd that work out?

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00:24:40.200 Do you have any money left after all this?

00:24:44.780 Well, basically no.

00:24:46.920 The company that I used to own, maybe I still do own, I don't know, it's in bankruptcy,

00:24:55.160 had nothing intervened today, it would have about $15 billion of liabilities and about $93 billion of assets.

00:25:11.500 So, the answer should be, in theory, yes, that, you know, there was enough money to pay everyone back in kind at the time,

00:25:24.700 or today, with, you know, plenty of interest left over and tens of billions left for investors.

00:25:31.820 But, I, that's not how things worked out.

00:25:38.460 And, instead, it all got broiled up in a, again, broiled in a bankruptcy,

00:25:45.040 where I, the assets were dissipated incredibly quickly by those controlling it.

00:25:54.020 They were siphoned off, tens of billions of dollars worth, and I, it's been a colossal disaster.

00:26:04.520 And, I mean, not stopping that from happening is, by far, the biggest regret of my life.

00:26:10.460 So, you knew everybody else in the crypto business, you're one of the most famous people in the business,

00:26:14.880 before the charges, before, you know, all of this happened.

00:26:19.360 Being as honest as you can, do you think you were the biggest criminal in the crypto business?

00:26:24.580 I don't think as a criminal.

00:26:26.120 So, certainly, the answer to that is no.

00:26:28.540 I mean, I think the DOJ thinks that I may have been, but I don't share their view.

00:26:33.140 Well, yeah, you're in jail.

00:26:34.680 They definitely, that's their claim anyway.

00:26:36.820 But, but I wonder, and I'm not, you know, I've certainly criticized your business and other businesses like it in, in the past.

00:26:44.680 And, again, I'm not even getting into the details of your case, because it's like Byzantine.

00:26:47.920 But, I'm, I'm just wondering, like, do you think there's a lot of shady behavior in the crypto business?

00:26:56.200 You know, being honest.

00:26:58.200 Yeah.

00:26:59.020 10 years ago, the answer was clearly yes.

00:27:02.060 Or, at least, yes, relative to the scale of the industry.

00:27:05.360 You know, you look in the, you know, 2014 to 2017 sort of era.

00:27:09.820 And there is not, you know, the industry is a lot smaller than it was today.

00:27:15.840 And, and a lot of the transactions I saw, or at least a higher fraction of them, were, well, different people use different words for it.

00:27:24.640 But, Silk Road, you know, as an example, right, people purchasing narcotics online was a common use of crypto back 10 years ago or so.

00:27:38.480 Obviously, there are always going to be criminals in any industry.

00:27:40.780 But, over time, the fraction of the industry that that represents has fallen off really substantially, both because of sort of growth of other areas of interest in crypto and also because of more government involvement on the anti-money laundering side.

00:27:58.820 So, yeah, there are still some, but not, it's not as, as prevalent as it once was.

00:28:04.060 So, you were famously identified with a worldview and ideology, maybe even a religion called defective altruism.

00:28:12.780 And the idea was that, as I understand it, that you, you know, do the greatest good for the greatest number.

00:28:18.180 You make money in order to help the maximum number of people.

00:28:21.680 And some have pointed out the irony that in the collapse of your company, like a million people lost their money.

00:28:26.720 So, there were a lot of individuals hurt in an effort that you described as, like, the greatest good for the greatest number.

00:28:34.480 And I wonder if all of this has made you rethink the precepts of effective altruism.

00:28:40.020 It hasn't made me rethink the precepts.

00:28:42.280 Obviously, I feel terrible about what happened.

00:28:45.500 It's not at all what I intended.

00:28:47.260 And whatever one's intentions are, I, you know, if you screw up, then the results might be different.

00:28:56.020 You know, people have their money back at the end, but it is too excruciating years waiting for it.

00:29:02.100 They got it back dollarized rather than in kind.

00:29:04.660 And certainly, all of the good that I've been hoping to do for the world ended up dissipating, or at least most of it did, when the company collapsed.

00:29:18.820 I guess what I'm saying is do – I mean, I think it's hard for most people to understand the idea that it's more virtuous or valuable to help people they've never met than it is to help the people right in front of them.

00:29:34.660 In other words, like, it's way more virtuous to help your wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter, brother, college roommate than it is to help, like, a village in a country you've never visited.

00:29:46.300 I think that's how most people feel intuitively.

00:29:48.880 But you disagree.

00:29:50.440 I disagree, although there is a caveat to it, which is that, you know, a classic mistake which people make, and I may have made at some points, is with people who you don't know who are distant from you,

00:30:03.540 thinking you know what they need when you don't, you know, being paternalistic, kind of condescending.

00:30:09.400 And, you know, there's so many foreign aid-type projects that have gone awry and ended up being complete wastes of money because no one knew the people they were giving to.

00:30:19.020 No one knew what their lives were like.

00:30:20.360 Right.

00:30:21.360 And they're just guessing at what they're speaking.

00:30:23.380 It's wrong.

00:30:24.380 And, you know, they show up with, like, a bunch of water pumps to a village that has plenty of water and no food.

00:30:29.920 And, like, you know, all these people shipped in from Harvard to go hand out these water pumps no one wants.

00:30:34.660 And, you know, there's, like, example after example of this going awry, whereas, obviously, like, when you're dealing with people you know, you know, you have a much better sense of how to help them.

00:30:45.740 And that's real.

00:30:46.460 Like, that effect is absolutely real.

00:30:48.280 And, you know, even if I think the life matters as much in one place as another, that doesn't mean that you know as well how to help one as you do the other.

00:30:56.620 Well, see, I think you're sort of making a counter case.

00:31:01.240 You're arguing against your own position.

00:31:02.620 I mean, isn't it – I mean, I guess the problem I have with the effect of altruism is just too easy.

00:31:06.640 I mean, it's like it's easy to cure polio.

00:31:09.300 It's really hard to make the same woman happy for 30 years. 0.99

00:31:12.940 And so maybe it's better to do the hard thing.

00:31:15.960 Well, I think what I'd say is, look, you look at – I mean, malaria is a good example here, right?

00:31:21.740 No one dies of malaria anymore in the United States.

00:31:24.120 I mean, basically no one does.

00:31:25.160 But globally, it's what, like a million people a year or something die of it.

00:31:28.680 And that's horrible that it happens.

00:31:31.840 Like, this is just a disease people shouldn't be dying from anymore.

00:31:34.640 We know how to basically eradicate it.

00:31:36.880 And we should absolutely be doing that as a world.

00:31:39.400 But, you know, because it's sort of like easy in some sense, that shouldn't stop us from being able to help people, you know, at home.

00:31:48.940 And you look at, like, the scale of resources that would be required to many of these, you know, interventions in the poorest part of the world.

00:31:55.660 And it's not that big.

00:31:57.680 It's not making – it would not take a big bite out of our domestic health if it were done efficiently.

00:32:03.860 But the efficient part is a big piece of this.

00:32:06.740 You can throw as many useless water pumps at villages without food as you want without curing anyone.

00:32:12.940 No, I think – I mean, you make a – I mean, that's demonstrably true.

00:32:15.700 And 60 years of aid to Africa has shown that as life expectancy has declined.

00:32:19.460 But I guess as a moral matter, how can you justify worrying about malaria when your cousin is addicted to Xanax?

00:32:30.060 Shouldn't you fix that first?

00:32:32.460 If I could.

00:32:33.660 But, you know, at the end of the day, we have responsibilities to each of us.

00:32:38.760 And, you know, if I know my cousin well and I know how to solve his problem because I'm his cousin, then absolutely, like, I have a responsibility to do that.

00:32:46.680 But if I've tried and I'm flailing at that, I can't figure out how to make progress, but I can figure out how to save lives internationally, or if someone can, then I don't think it takes away from the good that they can do internationally that they couldn't figure out how to solve their cousin's problem.

00:33:04.720 Right.

00:33:05.120 So do what you can.

00:33:05.880 I don't think that's a crazy point.

00:33:07.500 Last question on this topic.

00:33:08.800 Can you think of a big recent international aid project that was an unequivocal success?

00:33:14.460 So, sort of, but I'm not going to name the – it's not going to be a government aid project, to be clear.

00:33:23.880 They're private projects that happen.

00:33:26.720 Right.

00:33:27.000 You know, actually, malaria is a good example where a substantial fraction of the world's malaria has been cut down already by mostly private contributions from people to South Saharan Africa and India that, you know, saving probably hundreds of thousands of lives a year right now for, you know, thousands of dollars per life on average, which is, you know, sort of a stunning success on a relative scale.

00:33:53.600 Now, we're not talking about a trillion dollars.

00:33:56.460 We're talking about single-digit billions of dollars directed by really careful work by philanthropists.

00:34:02.880 And, you know, of course, you can look at gigantic government programs that did absolutely nothing.

00:34:10.540 You know, if you want to go to the government approach, I mean, I don't know, the Marshall Plan, like, that's sort of digging pretty deep in history.

00:34:18.260 But rebuilding Germany after World War II was probably a huge success on many fronts.

00:34:26.600 Yeah, I think we've undone it by blowing up Nord Stream.

00:34:31.880 But, yeah, no, I think it's a fair point.

00:34:36.260 So how old are you now?

00:34:39.240 Oh, you know, the funny thing, it took me a second to think of the answer that prison time changes when you're in prison.

00:34:50.640 It becomes sort of an amorphous concept when every day is sort of like the last, and they just blur together.

00:34:59.980 The answer is, well, I guess my birthday is tomorrow.

00:35:03.840 So as of right now, I am 32, but I will be 33 soon.

00:35:12.880 How are you going to celebrate your birthday?

00:35:15.520 I'm not.

00:35:16.700 I was never big on birthdays on the outside, and celebrating another year in prison just doesn't feel like all that exciting to me.

00:35:25.340 So you're not going to tell Diddy it's your birthday tomorrow?

00:35:28.000 I don't believe you.

00:35:29.960 Someone else might tell him, but I don't plan to.

00:35:33.240 So, okay, so you'll be 33 tomorrow.

00:35:36.060 If you are not pardoned, all things being equal, how old will you be when you get out?

00:35:41.040 It's a complicated calculation, which I don't understand all the details of because of, like, first step back stuff.

00:35:48.580 And if you just add, you know, my prison sentence, my age, so to speak, you know, then the answer is in my late 40s.

00:35:56.020 Wow.

00:35:59.200 Could you handle that?

00:36:03.180 Sorry.

00:36:03.880 What I said was wrong.

00:36:04.860 I misspoke.

00:36:05.880 If you add my prison sentence, my age, the late 50s, if you include all of the possible decreases, it might be the late 40s.

00:36:12.420 But the raw answer is, I mean, it's 32 when I was convicted, and I got a 25-year sentence, so that's 57.

00:36:22.220 So having done two out of the 25 so far, do you think you could, could you make it?

00:36:30.660 It's a good question.

00:36:31.740 I'm not sure.

00:36:32.920 I mean, the hardest thing is just not having something meaningful to be doing in here.

00:36:40.360 And, you know, and you can look at their studies.

00:36:42.860 I have no idea how good they are, but they show, you know, you age at roughly three times the normal rate in prison.

00:36:49.300 So, you know, you had three times 25 to my 32 years when I was convicted, and, you know, that gets you an answer of maybe.

00:37:00.380 Hmm.

00:37:02.420 So, I mean, it strikes me there's a kind of weird, it's, I mean, you went maybe more than anyone I've ever talked to from one world to a completely different world.

00:37:11.120 So you were in the world of digital money.

00:37:13.080 Now you're in a world with no money.

00:37:14.700 Oh, yeah.

00:37:15.180 What's the medium of exchange in prison?

00:37:18.060 I, you know, it's whatever people have, and, you know, muffins, like these little, so they're like little plastic wrapped.

00:37:25.720 You go to, like, a gas station, and, like, on the counter there might be, like, a plastic bowl with little individually wrapped plastic muffins that have been sitting there for a week at room temperature.

00:37:36.840 You know, imagine one of those.

00:37:38.700 That's sort of, that's like standard, is that a packet of ramen soup or a kind of disgusting-looking little foil package of fish in oil at room temperature?

00:37:48.240 Ooh.

00:37:50.100 Ooh.

00:37:51.100 Yeah.

00:37:51.340 So you went, you went from crypto to, to the muffin economy.

00:37:56.340 Yeah, that's right.

00:37:57.080 How would you, how would you compare them?

00:37:58.980 Obviously, it's harder to move muffins internationally, but.

00:38:02.180 Right.

00:38:02.600 I don't think they're going to be just.

00:38:03.520 Like, as a currency.

00:38:04.380 Anytime soon, globally.

00:38:06.700 I don't think it's going to be a strategic muffin reserve.

00:38:09.860 So, you know, they're a currency of need.

00:38:15.380 They wouldn't be anything else.

00:38:16.720 They don't have that much to recommend themselves.

00:38:18.720 But at the end of the day, they're kind of fungible.

00:38:21.960 They're not exactly fungible, but they're close enough.

00:38:23.940 You know, two muffins are kind of similar, so you can kind of trade them for each other.

00:38:26.700 They kind of work as long as you're never dealing with more than, like, $5.

00:38:32.160 Right?

00:38:32.560 Because if you wanted to do a $200 transaction in muffins, like what, you know, like the,

00:38:38.480 I mean, it doesn't work physically.

00:38:40.180 Right?

00:38:40.840 It's unwieldy.

00:38:41.640 Yeah.

00:38:42.220 It's unwieldy.

00:38:43.200 And so one of the things that, like, you realize really quickly is, I mean, the scale

00:38:48.360 of everything is so diminished in prison.

00:38:53.000 You know, you see people getting into a fistfight over a single banana.

00:38:57.060 Not because they even care about it that much, but because what else is there?

00:39:02.560 To channel your caring into.

00:39:07.160 Ooh, that's grim.

00:39:09.480 Have you, do you eat the muffins, by the way?

00:39:11.900 I don't eat.

00:39:12.820 Or do you just hoard them?

00:39:13.540 No, I just hoard them.

00:39:14.760 And yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't actually eat them.

00:39:16.720 I mostly eat rice and beans and ramen.

00:39:20.680 Wow.

00:39:21.280 Well, it looks like it's been, it's been good for you.

00:39:23.160 Do you, have you gotten any tattoos?

00:39:25.500 I have not.

00:39:26.440 I, I know some people who have, but I have not gotten any prison tattoos.

00:39:30.460 Have you thought about it?

00:39:32.420 So, you know, there's a part of me that's always like thought about getting a tattoo,

00:39:36.360 but talking with the inmates about their, you know, sanitization procedures or lack thereof

00:39:44.340 for the needles, sort of, you know, that, that cured that idea in my mind, not, no, no interest

00:39:50.260 anymore.

00:39:51.520 It's not worth the hep C.

00:39:53.140 It's not worth the hep C.

00:39:54.440 It's, you know, I would say like maybe they go through like four people or so before bothering

00:39:58.800 to sanitize a needle.

00:40:01.180 Ooh.

00:40:01.940 Yeah.

00:40:02.860 Ooh.

00:40:03.160 Okay.

00:40:04.120 So you're not, you're not doing that.

00:40:05.720 So since, since you've been away and you're facing, I guess, 23 more years, um, I always

00:40:12.540 wonder like the people you helped, I mean, you're in prison cause you hurt people, but

00:40:18.000 you also helped a lot of people in Washington by giving them many, many millions of dollars.

00:40:22.900 Did any of them call you to say, you know, good luck.

00:40:26.100 I hope you're doing okay.

00:40:27.680 Don't join a gang or say anything to you at all.

00:40:30.340 And right when the collapse hit, like in the immediate wake of it, I got a number of really

00:40:35.280 nice messages from a lot of people, including some in DC by six months later, none.

00:40:41.760 And so by the time trial happened, whereas, you know, put in prison, nothing.

00:40:46.720 And it's, it became too politically toxic.

00:40:51.240 Um, it became the incentives were too skewed against people, you know, risking their next.

00:40:57.500 I even heard frankly, about people saying third hand, like nice things about me, but

00:41:05.660 no one wanted to be in contact with me directly.

00:41:10.420 Did anyone contact you?

00:41:12.780 I mean, I, I noticed that you're, I thought it was your girlfriend testified against you.

00:41:16.880 Like, you know, there, did you have any friends who stayed loyal and supported you or, and continue

00:41:23.100 to?

00:41:24.080 Barely.

00:41:24.960 Um, yes, but very, very few.

00:41:27.940 I was surprised.

00:41:30.620 It makes sense in retrospect.

00:41:33.420 Um, anyone who was close to me ended up with a gun to their head.

00:41:38.320 Um, you know, being told that they had two options and one of them involved decades in

00:41:42.960 prison and I mean, I, I think Ryan Salem is sort of the saddest example of that and the

00:41:53.260 most disgusting example from the government's perspective where, you know, they charged him

00:41:59.080 of totally bogus crimes.

00:42:01.800 Um, he, he said, no, I'll see you in court.

00:42:05.160 This, so they went back and said, all right, well, how about your pregnant wife?

00:42:10.920 Um, what if we put her in prison? 1.00

00:42:13.720 And so he pleads guilty because they're going to put his wife in prison, which no sane legal

00:42:21.180 system would make that a permissible thing for a prosecution to do.

00:42:26.920 And then, and he wasn't even charged with most of what the other people who pled guilty were

00:42:34.460 charged with, you know, Ryan, he doesn't testify at trial because he doesn't want to lie.

00:42:40.900 He doesn't want to say what the government wants him to say.

00:42:43.420 And he ends up getting four times as much prison time as the other three, uh, guilty pleas

00:42:49.100 combined.

00:42:51.100 And like, he couldn't send a clear message.

00:42:53.000 Is it because he was a Republican or is it because he refused to parrot the government's

00:42:56.100 lies at trial?

00:42:56.700 Like those are the only things I can imagine why they give him seven and a half years in

00:43:01.060 prison. 0.94

00:43:01.300 It's disgusting. 0.60

00:43:05.220 And I had him to my house and I interviewed him and I think they charged his wife as well.

00:43:09.580 It's totally immoral what they did.

00:43:11.360 Totally.

00:43:11.860 Right.

00:43:12.360 They went back on their promise and, and charged his wife anyway.

00:43:15.680 Like, you know, just, just to sort of disabuse any notion of them sort of like operating good

00:43:22.320 faith. 0.85

00:43:22.960 It's, it's disgusting. 0.98

00:43:24.080 He's, he's a good guy.

00:43:25.440 I, you know, he didn't serve any of that.

00:43:27.240 Has it, it dawned on you, you know, I don't know what kind of news coverage you're getting

00:43:33.420 kind of contact you have with the outside world.

00:43:35.580 It sounds like not too much, but that things are moving so quickly out here by the time

00:43:40.660 you get out.

00:43:41.460 I mean, AI, for example, it sounds like we're reaching, uh, AGI or some, something singularity,

00:43:48.520 uh, soon.

00:43:49.460 Yeah.

00:43:50.320 That you may emerge whenever you do into a world that, that doesn't look anything like

00:43:55.100 the world you left.

00:43:56.560 Yeah.

00:43:57.660 I feel pretty acutely and it's, you know, the sort of feeling of the world moving on, uh,

00:44:04.020 without you.

00:44:05.420 Oh, is, um, having children part of your effective altruism philosophy?

00:44:13.460 No, different people in the community have different views on it.

00:44:18.280 And at the end of the day, I mean, for five years, I felt like I had about 300 children

00:44:25.200 most days, my employees, like it was, obviously I couldn't be a father in the same way to all

00:44:31.020 of them, but I felt responsible for them.

00:44:34.020 I mean, feel terrible about all their work being tossed down the drain.

00:44:40.500 Um, but, uh, I didn't have time for my personal life at all, basically when I was running FTX.

00:44:48.300 And I mean, I certainly am not in a position to have kids from in person.

00:44:52.280 So have any of those 300 employees visited you in jail?

00:44:57.860 Uh, no, uh, I think the answer is, is no to that.

00:45:04.700 You know, there's one or two.

00:45:06.040 Probably ought to have some real kids at some point, don't you think?

00:45:08.600 Cause they, when things go bad, they stick around, you know, it, it, it's got me thinking

00:45:13.440 about what it means to have real friends and it's, and, and about the amount of power that

00:45:21.360 some systems in our country end up having and the amount of intimidation that can be achieved

00:45:27.520 implicitly.

00:45:29.580 But I, but also about, yeah, having people I know I can count on.

00:45:37.280 Yeah.

00:45:38.420 Other people are all that matter.

00:45:40.420 Sam Bankman-Fried, I, I, I'm grateful that you did this and probably the only interview

00:45:44.900 you ever do where you don't get pressed on your business.

00:45:46.800 Cause there are other people to do that, but I was glad to talk to you and I hope you'll

00:45:50.220 give our best to Diddy.

00:45:51.620 I, I will absolutely do that.

00:45:53.080 I can't believe you're in jail with Diddy.

00:45:54.380 It's, you know, someone told me three years ago, like you'll be hanging out with, with

00:45:59.640 Diddy, you know, every day, be like, oh, that's interesting.

00:46:01.700 I wonder if that's going to happen.

00:46:02.720 I guess he gets into crypto or something.

00:46:08.320 Oh, life is so weird.

00:46:09.880 Godspeed.

00:46:10.320 Thank you.

00:46:11.040 Thank you.

00:46:11.800 Thank you.

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The Tucker Carlson Show - March 06, 2025

Sam Bankman-Fried on Life in Prison With Diddy, and How Democrats Stole His Money and Betrayed Him

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