Foreign spokesman Kevin O'leary says he lost his 15 million payday from crypto Firm. You might be. What do you mean his payday like was he invested? Was it trance like? what's going on? What's the deal with this 15 mil? Just to add a little bit more context to it, here you go: Kevin O'leary says he lost almost 10 million in the FTX collapse. That and that the exchange had paid him 15 million to be a spokesman.

so he lost almost 10 and he was paid 15. So if you do some quick math, he still net ahead 5 million dollars and this is Mr Wonderful himself. Fun fact: if you're watching this video right now in real time with me on December 8th and maybe more. So if you stock my social media, you know that I interviewed him yesterday I Am trying to get the interview out this weekend and what's crazy about it is this all happened today.

So unfortunately when I spoke with them yesterday I wasn't given the opportunity to talk to him about the 15 mil because it was all recorded yesterday and all this news was breaking this morning. Talk about just like I Feel fortunate that I was even in the position. Shout out to Benzinga for them helping me set up the interview with Kevin O'leary But man, even if I just one day later, the questions could have been so much more spicy I I Watching it all back in my honest critiques of myself I hit him with some good questions. but I wish I was just a bit more aggressive and maybe I'm doing a little bit of hindsight bias because I see all this now and I'm like oh man, these questions write themselves like obviously your net ahead five mil Are you giving it back? What's going on all that good stuff, but it is what it is.

The interview filmed yesterday. ideally it will be coming out on Saturday of this weekend stay posted for that. but yeah, the dude apparently paid a lot and uh, allegedly has about just under 10 mil that he can no longer access on the FTX exchange and you could hear it from him himself. I Want you to sort of walk us through all of this because I think there's a lot of questions uh about what happened I know that you've lost money in the process of all this.

That would be an understatement I want to understand how much money you lost in the context but I also want to understand how the in how the investment and this ambassadorship happened at the time that it happened. you did disclose it. but but I want to understand how you went from calling crypto garbage at one point as you know to deciding that this was something that you were going to stand behind. Yes, I recall that conversation calling it garbage right here on this show in 2017.

That was a time when a New York hotel is being tokenized here and I was looking at that and uh, the regulator let me know they were not happy with that idea and that's when I stepped away from this because clearly the regulatory environment was not prepared. Then facts changed. I saw the Canadians issue. the first ETF with Bitcoin is on the relying ethereum.

then Switzerland opened up, then Australia opened up and then I said wait a second world's changing I got to be an investor and that started my journey. I I'm an investor in the largest regulated Exchange in Canada called Wonderfi. the walls are called bit by. we're regulated by the Osc I have my accounts up there but the I felt that getting involved when I was approached with with Sam bankman freed that I could get an inside seat on what was considered then and I I got it I Gotta tell you, the institutional interest in in FTX on the U.S Equity was unbelievable.

The amount of people that approached me saying how do I get a piece of this deal and I said at that time I am a paid spokesperson I cannot bring you as an in as an LP not a single dollar that I lost is anybody else's money except mine. That's important for me because that's an issue. how much were you paid Total deal was just under 15 million dollars all in including a bunch of agents and that I had to pay because I needed sag after release to be able to do commercials for it. and when I did that I put about 9.7 million into crypto I Think that's what I've lost.

it's all at zero I Don't know because my account got scraped a couple of weeks ago. all the data, all the coins, everything. So then I lost the money I invested. those are zeros too foreign.

All right. He actually didn't stop there. so that was basically paid 15 mil lost 9.7 is Crypto lost 1 mil in the FTX investment. So he's still a net ahead by this basic math about four mil.

No, it's true, but there are times when you might have a pretty good idea about whether someone. oh, that's a tough analogy. I'm not making it an analogy. I'm saying there are times in the past where we know.

pretty you know. That's why. if you're a defense attorney that represents someone that you know is guilty, you gotta say yeah, Well, they're Innocent But you may know they're guilty. You may know they're guilty if you find someone.

if you watch someone kill someone, yeah, they're innocent. There's only the murder of my money in this case. it's the murder of my buddy. Everybody's right.

Look, Joe if you use money that you got I don't I don't know I don't think you should be singing the blues right now at all. Oh yes, I'm singing the blues. 15 million didn't pan out that you. that's a lot of money.

This is a paid spokesperson. It's a lot of money. You didn't have to do much for that. That's pretty.

That's found money. Different position. That's a different discussion. Okay, you know you can make that decision on your own.

but I'm going to this point if you want to say he's guilty before he's tried I Just don't understand it, but it may end up costing you 15. a reputational and everything else. That's the problem. that's why I stayed on this Pursuit I'm very transparent about it I've disclosed everything I know about it I will find out more information if I make the credit committee I will act as a fiduciary for everybody involved I will testify I Am an advocate for this industry and this changes nothing.

Just look at the numbers that came out of circle today. I'm an investor there too. You've got the I lost it all in FTX and we have a fantastic print on Circle The promise of Crypto remains. This will not change it and you'll be discussing this case for two years.

It's not going to go away two years and then kind of interesting that he wants to represent the creditors as an like the people who lost money to fight with it. And this last part you can kind of tell in the Benzinga Future of Crypto conference he kind of was working on these lines I Heard this on the panel yesterday but I he spoke about it in his interview with me and then he said it again here. and this is the part that I'm I'm curious on all of your take. Here's what: I don't understand I mean you're right Everybody who we thought were Savvy investors can look at this and say we should have seen the signs we should have known I listened to the interview that Andrew did with him deal book and I thought that guy's a crook and a liar.

You listened to it and said you'd invest money with them again. If it turns out there's nothing criminally wrong here. What did you hear that I had In the context of that is I have been known for decades to invest in. entrepreneurs have had catastrophic outcomes bad ones because they learn a lot from their mistakes.

It may not fit for Sandbank and Freed because we don't know the outcome of what's going to occur. But all I can say is everything he said oh I just didn't realize how Wild is that how Wild is that that he tweeted this I lost Millions as an investor in FTX and got sandblasted as a paid spokesperson for the firm. but after listening to that interview I'm in the Bill Ackman Camp about the kid if you don't know what Bill Ackman said about it who's a famed Wall Street uh guy he said this Sam Baker been freed character I believe him. What do you mean You believe him? Just kind of an awkwardly bad look and that's really what I was going with when I had the opportunity to speak with Kevin I was like hey man, don't you understand that the populist movement right now is against it.

It's more of an emotional thing that people got hurt. And then the final question I realized and I was like are you personally angry? like are you angry at Sam Bateman Freed And to that he had some interesting interesting. Didn't realize you didn't realize there was an eight billion dollar hole. You didn't realize that there was like these clients funds that were being swapped over there.

It's not his fault like that. That to me is like man, that guy has bad news. That's not just you had bad luck, he was lying and manipulating you. Don't know because you have no data.

All I'm saying is let's do the forensic audit. Let's do the forensic audit. Let's find out what happened. I Owe everybody that follows me as you said Andrew I owe them that information I Feel compelled to go get it I am going to go get it I'm lucky I have resources to do it.

So the final part there I Kind of get that in America you are innocent until proven guilty and I think right now the public court is very much against Sam Bateman Freed because it seems like even the evidence that is already publicly available seems to be pretty damning. but unfortunately we are in a scenario. Well, this will most likely play out over the next couple of years because Justice moves slowly. But overall I Want your thoughts? What do you think about Mr Wonderful AKA Kevin O'leary Getting paid 15 mil, losing until 11 mil, profiting at least four mil and kind of this concept of if he isn't a fraud, I would invest in him again.

Please, please let me know your thoughts.