“Shark Tank” star Kevin O’Leary defended his place as a spokesperson for bankrupt crypto agency FTX on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on Friday.
“This is America. The justice system provides the presumption of innocence unless proven otherwise,” O’Leary responded when requested why he did not extra stridently condemn Bankman-Fried. The former FTX CEO was arrested by Bahamian authorities earlier this week, pending extradition and trial to face prices in U.S. federal courtroom.
O’Leary was pressed on his paid FTX ambassadorship, enterprise capital profession and his protection of Sam Bankman-Fried days earlier than his arrest by CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin, Joe Kernen and Becky Quick.
Kernen minced no phrases with the Canadian businessman. “Are you still calling yourself a venture investor?” the Squawk Box host requested O’Leary. “Your venture investing was your name being able to used as a spokesperson?”
“Joe, bad news. I have a very large advisory business,” O’Leary retorted. Kernen continued to press O’Leary. “Are you still conflating money you got paid by FTX that you lost, or did you actually invest some of your own funds?”
“Money is fungible,” O’Leary replied.
“So you didn’t. Once again, you’re a venture investor who ventured your name,” Kernen mentioned. “You didn’t even pay your own money on the taxes.”
O’Leary continued to return to his misplaced $10 million funding in FTX, which was given to him as a part of his compensation for showing as a paid spokesperson. Traditional enterprise investing sometimes entails a fund or particular person investing their very own funds in a business.
“They had to open that round for me,” O’Leary mentioned. “I have 54 companies in my portfolio right now.”
“Kevin, you are an actor in this drama, and you had a front-row seat to Bankman-Fried up until the very end,” Sorkin mentioned. “What do you think happened? Do you think this was a fraud?”
“I haven’t got the info. [New FTX CEO] John Ray does not have them but. He’s going to get them,” O’Leary responded. “I’m looking through my records. I’m willing to fund a forensic account of our accounts.”
“There are a lot of bad things that have been alleged here, and a lot of them are going to be true, likely,” he added.
But on the identical time, O’Leary mentioned he wasn’t inclined to indulge outraged traders on Twitter.
“I understand that the herd is angry,” the businessman, who can also be a CNBC contributor, mentioned.
Sorkin additionally noticed that, versus Tom Brady or Larry David, traders may count on that O’Leary knew higher than most tips on how to perceive if FTX was problematic or not.
“Companies advertise, and they do it this way,” O’Leary mentioned.
Kernen additionally pressed O’Leary on his fast about-face on bitcoin.
“Did that conversion coincide with the $15 million you bought from FTX?” Kernen requested. “No,” O’Leary mentioned, stating that his bitcoin investing started years earlier than his ambassadorship for FTX, in 2018.
But Sorkin pointed to a 2019 tv look and famous that O’Leary referred to as bitcoin “garbage.”
“Then I’m wrong about that,” O’Leary mentioned. “The point is, it was long before I became a paid spokesperson. Long before.”
“I love getting sandpapered by you guys every day. It’s fantastic,” O’Leary concluded.
Disclosure: CNBC owns the unique off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”