FTX lobbyist tried to buy island Nauru, create superspecies: lawsuit

Sam Bankman-Fried’s youthful brother, who was a high lobbyist for failed crypto trade FTX, thought-about buying the island nation of Nauru within the Pacific to create a fortified apocalypse bunker state, a lawsuit filed in Delaware chapter courtroom reveals.

Gabe Bankman-Fried was wanting to buy Nauru within the “occasion the place 50%-99.99% of individuals die” to guard his philanthropic allies and create a genetically enhanced human species, in line with the go well with filed Thursday by attorneys from Sullivan & Cromwell, which is searching for to get better billions of {dollars} following the collapse of FTX.

Bunker life is a well-documented fixation amongst tech billionaires, notably those that establish as doomsday preppers. There’s additionally a fascination with shopping for giant estates within the Pacific and even proudly owning small islands there.

In his years operating FTX, the elder Bankman-Fried brother touted a philanthropic life-style referred to as efficient altruism and established the philanthropic arm with that in thoughts. Devotees of efficient altruism work to maximise their earnings to allow them to give away their cash in a vogue they see as most useful to humankind.

Gabe Bankman-Fried was FTX’s most seen presence in Washington, D.C., and was linked to bipartisan charitable donations that bumped into the tons of of hundreds of thousands. Together with an unnamed philanthropic officer of FTX, he thought-about shopping for Nauru, partly to foster “wise regulation round human genetic enhancement, and construct a lab there.”

A consultant for Nauru confirmed the island nation was not and has by no means been on the market.

Nauru, with a inhabitants of about 12,000, is somewhat over 2,100 miles away from Brisbane, Australia. It was there that FTX legal professionals allege the Bankman-Fried crew sought to determine an emergency base for itself and a choose group of “EAs,” or efficient altruists.

Along with serving as a haven in case of apocalypse, “most likely there are different issues it is helpful to do with a sovereign nation, too,” in line with a memo between the youthful Bankman-Fried and the philanthropic advisor, which was famous within the go well with.

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