Former FTX engineer quietly became multimillion dollar Democratic donor after new role at cryptocurrency exchange

Published

3 years ago

December 6, 2022

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FTX logo with crypto coins with 100 Dollar bill are displayed for illustration. FTX has filed for bankruptcy in the US, seeking court protection as it looks for a way to return money to users.

Jonathan Raa | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried wasn’t the only company executive who put big money behind campaigns aligned with the Democratic Party.

A year after Nishad Singh became the company’s director of engineering, he quietly emerged as a reliable political donor for Democrats, according to over a dozen Federal Election Commission records reviewed by CNBC.

Singh, who became FTX’s lead engineer in 2019 following a stint at Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research, has donated over $13 million to party causes since the start of the 2020 presidential election, according to state and federal campaign finance records.

Singh donated $8 million to federal campaigns in the 2022 election cycle, and all of it went to Democrats, according to the nonpartisan OpenSecrets. He was among a handful of former senior officials at FTX who were deeply involved with financing the 2022 midterms.

The sum makes him the 34th highest donor to all federal campaigns across the country during the latest election, ahead of other party donors such as billionaires Tom Steyer and angel investor Ron Conway, OpenSecrets said.

Singh’s only recorded campaign donation before he took the senior role at FTX was a $2,700 contribution in 2018 to Rep. Sean Casten, D-Ill., a member of the House Financial Services Committee.

Two years later, Singh donated $1 million to Future Forward USA, a PAC that backed President Joe Biden’s 2020 run for president, records show. Singh lists Alameda Research as his employer on the filing showing the $1 million donation.

Records show some of his donations mirrored those made by Bankman-Fried. The former FTX CEO gave $5 million to the pro-Biden PAC the same month Singh contributed.

Singh, who was among the FTX leaders initially fired after the company collapsed, did not return repeated requests for comment. He reportedly was one of Bankman-Fried’s roommates and contributed to FTX’s philanthropic arm.

A prolific Democratic donor

Singh’s multimillion dollar output in the midterms makes him only one of the key FTX figures who piled money into the election cycle.

Bankman-Fried contributed $39 million during the 2022 midterms, while co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets Ryan Salame donated another $23 million, according to OpenSecrets. Bankman-Fried gave most of his money to Democrats, while Salame aimed to boost Republicans.

Still, Singh was known in the crypto political fundraising world as a “Bankman-Fried guy,” who made many of the same campaign contributions as the former FTX CEO, according to a strategist for multiple crypto-backed political action committees. Those who declined to be named in this story did so in order to speak about private conversations.

Bankman-Fried and FTX are under investigation by federal authorities and regulators after it was discovered that the cryptocurrency company funneled billions of dollars in FTX client funds into Alameda Research. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month.

Bankruptcy court filings show that Alameda made $4.1 billion in related party loans, including a $543 million loan to Singh.

The former lead engineer at FTX spread his money across a variety of Democratic causes before the company’s collapse.

Singh gave a combined $2 million in June and July to the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that helped Democrats maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate. That’s double the amount Bankman-Fried contributed to the same organization throughout the midterms. That super PAC is currently spending millions to help Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., defeat Republican candidate Herschel Walker in a runoff campaign for a Senate seat in Georgia.

A PAC spokeswoman declined to comment.

Singh lists a mailing address in Los Altos Hills, Calif., on the FEC filings showing the contributions to the super PAC. The home was sold last year for over $4 million and features a wraparound deck next to an outdoor hot tub, according to Zillow.

Singh gave $4 million, combined, in August and September to Reproductive Freedom for All, a campaign that boosted a Michigan ballot measure called Proposition 3, according to state records. The ballot measure approved last month effectively codifies abortion rights for people in Michigan.

The $4 million Singh gave to the group doubles billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s $2 million contribution to the same organization in September, records show. A representative for the campaign did not return requests for comment.

Singh gave another $1 million last year to Mind the Gap, a super PAC that was co-founded by Barbara Fried, a lawyer and Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother. The super PAC has reportedly acted as a donor advisory group that helps Democrats raise campaign cash. Singh’s donation was the single largest contribution the PAC has ever received, according to OpenSecrets.

The FEC filing showing the $1 million to Mind the Gap lists Singh’s mailing address as an over 7,000-square-foot-home in Saratoga, Calif. The home is estimated to be worth $8.5 million, according to Zillow.

Fried did not return a request for comment. Representatives for the PAC also did not return requests for comment.

Scrutiny of FTX builds

The political donations came in the buildup to FTX’s collapse. Washington has increased its scrutiny of FTX, and the House Financial Services Committee is preparing to hold a hearing on the platform’s implosion later this month.

The committee has called on Bankman-Fried to testify. The former FTX CEO said in a tweet on Sunday that he may not testify in front of the committee during the Dec. 13 hearing, citing his need to finish “learning and reviewing what happened” at his crypto company.

Committee Chair Rep. Maxine Water, D-Calif., insisted to Bankman-Fried in a tweet on Monday that “it is imperative that you attend our hearing on the 13th.” A lawmaker on the committee told CNBC that, as of Monday evening, Waters had yet to tell members privately that she will subpoena Bankman-Fried to testify.

John Jay Ray III, the current FTX CEO, is going to testify on Dec. 13, according to House Financial Services Committee ranking member Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C.

Technology

Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Published

6 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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Circle shares fall after stablecoin issuer says it will offer 10 million shares

Circle Internet Group Initial Public Offering at the New York Stock Exchange in New York City, U.S., June 5, 2025.

NYSE

Circle Internet Group stock tumbled more than 5% in extended trading Tuesday after it said it would offer 10 million Class A shares to the public.

Of the total stock being offered, 2 million shares will be offered by Circle. The remaining 8 million shares will be sold by stockholders.

The stablecoin issuer’s shares have soared more than 450% since it went public on June 5.

As part of the offering, Circle is offering its underwriters a 30-day option to buy an additional 1.5 million shares.

Circle shares closed Tuesday up 1.3% after the company reporting its first quarterly results as a publicly traded company. While charges tied to its IPO weighed on its second-quarter results and led to a loss of $4.48 per share, it saw revenue rise 53% on the back of strong stablecoin growth.

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Technology

CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

Published

7 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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CoreWeave shares drop even as revenue tops estimates

Mike Intrator, co-founder and CEO of CoreWeave, speaks at the Nasdaq headquarters in New York on March 28, 2025.

Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images News | Getty Images

CoreWeave shares fell about 6% in extended trading on Tuesday even as the provider of artificial intelligence infrastructure beat estimates for second-quarter revenue

Here’s how the company did in comparison with LSEG consensus:

Earnings per share: Loss of 21 cents
Revenue: $1.21 billion vs. $1.08 billion expected

Revenue more than tripled from $395.4 million a year earlier, CoreWeave said in a statement. The company registered a $290.5 million net loss, compared with a $323 million loss in second quarter of 2024. CoreWeave’s earnings per share figure wasn’t immediately comparable with estimates from LSEG.

CoreWeave’s operating margin shrank to 2% from 20% a year ago due primarily to $145 million in stock-based compensation costs. This is CoreWeave’s second quarter of full financial results as a public company following its IPO in March.

CoreWeave pointed to an expansion in business with OpenAI, a major client and investor. Also during the quarter, CoreWeave acquired Weights and Biases, a startup with software for monitoring AI models, for $1.4 billion.

In May, management touted 420% revenue growth, alongside widening losses and nearly $9 billion in debt. The stock still doubled anyway over the course of the next month.

CoreWeave shares became available on Nasdaq at the end of the first quarter, after the company sold 37.5 shares at $40 each, yielding $1.5 billion in proceeds. As of Tuesday’s close, the stock was trading at $148.75 for a market cap of over $72 billion.

A CoreWeave data center project with up to 250 megawatts of capacity is set to be delivered in 2026, the company said in the statement.

Executives will discuss the results and issue guidance on a conference call starting at 5 p.m. ET.

This is breaking news. Please check back for updates.

WATCH: Citi’s Tyler Radke’s bullish call on CoreWeave, upgraded to buy

Technology

White House says it’s working out legality of Nvidia and AMD China chip deals

Published

9 hours ago

August 12, 2025

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White House says it's working out legality of Nvidia and AMD China chip deals

U.S. President Donald Trump (L) invites Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang to speak in the Cross Hall of the White House during an event on “Investing in America” on April 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.

Andrew Harnik | Getty Images

The Trump administration is still working out the details of its 15% export tax on Nvidia and AMD and could bring deals of this kind to more companies, the White House’s Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.

“Right now it stands with these two companies. Perhaps it could expand in the future to other companies,” said Leavitt, the White House’s spokesperson.

“The legality of it, the mechanics of it, is still being ironed out by the Department of Commerce, and I would defer you to them for any further details on how it will actually be implemented,” she continued.

President Donald Trump confirmed on Monday that he had negotiated a deal with Nvidia in which the U.S. government approves export licenses for the China-specific H20 AI chip in exchange for a 15% cut of revenue. Advanced Micro Devices also got licenses approved in exchange for a proportion of its China sales, the White House confirmed.

“I said, ‘If I’m going to do that, I want you to pay us as a country something, because I’m giving you a release,'” Trump said Monday.

“We follow rules the U.S. government sets for our participation in worldwide markets,” Nvidia said in a statement this week.

Trump said the export licenses for AMD and Nvidia were a done deal. But lawyers and experts who follow trade have warned that Trump’s deal may be complicated because of existing laws that regulate how the government can charge fees for export licenses.

The Commerce Department didn’t immediately return a request for comment.

The H20 is Nvidia’s Chinese-specific chip that is slowed down on purpose to comply with U.S. export relations. It’s related to the H100 and H200 chips that are used in the U.S., and was introduced after the Biden administration implemented export controls on artificial intelligence chips in 2023.

Earlier this year, Nvidia said that it was on track to sell more than $8 billion worth of H20 chips in a single quarter before the Trump administration in April said that it would require a license to export the chip.

Trump signaled in July that he was likely to approve export licenses for the chip after Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang visited the White House.

The U.S. regulates AI chips like those made by Nvidia for national security reasons, saying that they could be used by the Chinese government to leapfrog U.S. capabilities in AI, or they could be used by the Chinese military or linked groups.

The Chinese government has been encouraging local companies in recent weeks to avoid using Nvidia’s H20 chips for any government or national security-related work, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.

WATCH: Access to Nvidia’s H20 won’t hand China an AI advantage: Analyst