Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary sat down with Insider to discuss the booming artificial intelligence sector.
He said by the end of the year, AI will likely have a 3.5% weighting in his investment portfolio.
The media personality also shared details of his potential investment in ChatGPT parent OpenAI.
From Tom Brady to Kevin O’Leary, here are 12 famous backers of FTX set to be wiped out in the exchange’s stunning collapse
The fall of FTX has led to billions of dollars in losses for both its investors and customers.
As FTX goes through the bankruptcy process, details are starting to emerge about who its investors were.
From Tom Brady to Kevin O’Leary, here are 12 famous backers facing a wipeout in the dramatic collapse.
The spectacular downfall of FTX last year has cost investors and customers of the cryptocurrency exchange billions of dollars.
As the company goes through the bankruptcy process, more details are starting to emerge about who exactly were the equity investors in FTX. At its peak, the company reached a valuation of $32 billion. FTX is essentially worthless today and its new CEO, John Ray III, is solely focused on recovering as much as possible to pay back its creditors and customers.
“At the end of the day, we’re not going to be able to recover all of the losses here,” Ray said last month.
During typical bankruptcy proceedings, bond holders and other debt investors are often able to recoup some of their losses, while equity investors are usually wiped out entirely.
As part of its ongoing bankruptcy process, FTX released a list of its investors on Monday, detailing just how many investors are set to be completely wiped out from the downfall of the crypto exchange. The list includes hundreds of investors that own billions of shares of the different FTX entity structures.
From Tom Brady to Kevin O’Leary, here are 12 famous backers that invested in FTX and are now facing a wipeout.
1. Tom Brady
The court document revealed that Brady, who was a brand ambassador for FTX and appeared in a commercial for the company, owns just over 1.1 million common shares of FTX Trading.
It is unclear exactly how much money Brady lost on his FTX investment.
2. Robert Kraft
Billionaire Robert Kraft, who owns the New England Patriots football team, was listed in the FTX bankruptcy document. Through KPC Venture Capital, Kraft owns over 110,000 Series B preferred shares of FTX Trading, as well as 479,000 common shares and about 44,000 Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shires, the company that controls FTX’s US-based exchange.
It is unclear exactly how much money Kraft lost on his FTX investment.
3. Gisele Bündchen
4. Kevin O’Leary
Kevin O’Leary’s venture capital firm, O’Leary Ventures, was listed as owning 139,000 Class A Common shares and 12,631 Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shires. O’Leary Ventures also owned 25,944 common shares and 6,486 Series B-1 Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
O’Leary has said the FTX implosion cost him his $1 million equity investment in FTX, as well as a loss of nearly $10 million in crypto he held on the exchange. O’Leary also said he was paid $15 million to be a paid spokesman for the company.
5. Anthony Scaramucci
Funds associated with Anthony Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital were listed as owning 1.3 million Class A Common shares of West Realm Shires. Additionally, SkyBridge funds were listed as owning 244,196 common shares and 61,049 Series B-1 Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
It is unclear exactly how much money Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital lost on its FTX investment.
6. Sequoia Capital
Funds associated with Sequoia Capital were listed as owning 32.7 million Class A Common shares and 5.2 million Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shire. The venture capital firm was also listed as owning 2.3 million common shares, 572,335 Series B-1 Preferred shares, and 4.8 million Series B Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
Funds associated with Thoma Bravo were listed as owning 19.7 million Class A Common shares and 4.4 million Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shire. Thoma Bravo also owned 4.6 million Series B Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
Hedge fund Tiger Global was listed as owning 1.3 million Class A Common shares and 6.6 million Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shire. Tiger was also listed as owning 236,565 common shares, 59,141 Series B-1 Preferred shares, and 323,612 Series C Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
Third Point Ventures, the venture capital arm of Dan Loeb’s Third Point hedge fund, was listed as owning 6.6 million Class A Common shares and 4.4 million Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shire. Third Point was also listed as owning 152,620 common shares, 1.3 million Series B Preferred shares, 38,155 Series B-1 Preferred shares, and 431,482 Series C Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
It is unclear exactly how much money Loeb lost on his FTX investment.
10. Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan
The Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan was listed as owning 12.0 million Class A Common shares and 8.8 million Series A Preferred shares of West Realm Shire. The pension also owned 2.2 million common shares and 558,376 Series B-1 Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
Singapore’s state-funded investment firm Temasek owned 32.8 million common Class A shares, and 26.2 million Series A preferred shares of West Realm Shires, the company that controls FTX’s US-based exchange.
Temasek also owned 1.5 million common shares, 3.8 million Series B Preferred, 381,556 Series B-1 Preferred, and 1.3 million Series C Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
An LLC dubbed 2021-015 Investments, which is associated with Peter Thiel, was listed as owning 245,000 Class A Common shares of West Realm Shire. The business was also listed as owning 45,784 common shares and 11,446 Series B-1 Preferred shares of FTX Trading.
It is unclear exactly how much money Thiel lost on his FTX investment.
13/13 SLIDES
Shark Tank star Kevin O’Leary views artificial intelligence as a tremendous investment opportunity, and says it’s likely to be the fastest-growing category in his portfolio for 2023.
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“Our plan is to probably give artificial intelligence a 3.5% weighting by the end of the year,” O’Leary told Insider in an interview.
He now uses ChatGPT for queries about half the time, instead of Google exclusively, and plans to try out Bing once it’s fully operational with OpenAI’s technology.
“ChatGPT certainly is a threat to Google, and Google must know that,” he said. “The market hasn’t really punished Google stock for this. But a few quarters from now, if ChatGPT really starts to bring in significant subscriber fees, then we’ll see what happens.”
Still, he believes OpenAI’s multibillion-dollar valuation remains “very, very extreme.” But given the boom in AI enthusiasm, and that lawmakers and regulators seem unlikely to curtail innovation, the investment potential remains high.
It’s possible the biggest AI winner eventually will be an under-the-radar candidate that isn’t a household name, O’Leary said. But the downside for one company is already clear for him.
“[The] loser is Google,” he maintained. “The AI search wars on are.”
“I’m looking at the ChatGPT deal right now from an equity perspective, deciding what allocation I want to put into it,” O’Leary said. “I’m very fortunate to be offered a piece of it.”
He likened the technology to the disruptive nature of Amazon in the early 2000s, a company he was also an early investor in.
At the time, commentators criticized the online retailer’s high valuation, but its success taught O’Leary not to lend too much credence to valuations alone.
What guides him instead is diversification, and whatever portfolio an OpenAI stake goes into, it won’t be more than 5% of it, he said. Whether the holding pays off or not, “we won’t sell the farm for it.”
“[AI is] sort of the new, hot kid on the block, like the internet was 20 years ago,” O’Leary continued. “This is the next thing, and what you learn with next things is that it’s often best to invest in the first mover and sit back and watch.”
