Anna Wintour wanted Sam Bankman-Fried to sponsor the Met Gala, but he had no idea who she was, FTX book author says

  • Anna Wintour once sought Sam Bankman-Fried’s sponsorship for the Met Gala, says Michael Lewis.
  • But the author told “60 Minutes” that Bankman-Fried had no idea who Wintour was.

Vogue’s Anna Wintour wanted to secure Sam Bankman-Fried’s sponsorship for the Met Gala, but Bankman-Fried didn’t know who she was, according to the author of an upcoming book on FTX.

During an interview on “60 Minutes” which aired on Sunday, Michael Lewis recounted an occasion when he sat in to observe a meeting between Bankman-Fried and Wintour.

“He says, ‘I gotta go do a Zoom.’ I said, ‘What is it?’ And he says, “There’s this person named Anna Wintour,'” Lewis told “60 Minutes” correspondent Jon Wertheim. “And he didn’t know who she was.”

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Lewis told “60 Minutes” that on this particular occasion, he “sat off to one side,” where Wintour couldn’t see him on the call.

Lewis added that he thought it was surprising that Wintour was seeking Bankman-Fried’s sponsorship for the Met Gala, even though he was “the worst dressed person in America.”

“He is the worst-dressed person in America. He is the worst-dressed billionaire in the history of billionaires,” Lewis said.

“Which she wants him to do is to sponsor the Met Gala, her great ball that she throws every year, which is, like, you know, all about dress, and appearances,” he continued.

Lewis’ book on the rise and fall of Bankman-Fried’s FTX, “Going Infinite,” is set to be published on Tuesday. The author, who has penned books on finance such as “The Big Short” and “Flash Boys, told “60 Minutes” that to write the book, he interviewed Bankman-Fried more than a hundred times.

Lewis told “60 Minutes” that from his time spent with the FTX boss, he thought Bankman-Fried’s wealth appeared to have attracted “everybody,” all of whom wanted to be his “best friend.”

“He is a person who has nothing, all of a sudden has a seemingly infinite dollars, will give it away, is unbelievably open-handed about it, and doesn’t ask a whole lot of questions,” Lewis said on “60 Minutes.”

“What that attracts? Who shows up when this person exists? Everybody,” Lewis added.

A spokesman for Bankman-Fried declined to comment on Lewis’ remarks. A representative for Wintour did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider sent outside regular business hours.

Bankman-Fried’s meeting with Wintour was not the only time FTX was involved with the world of fashion.

The now-bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange made a donation of $550,000 to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2022. The museum said it planned to return the donations to the company’s debtors, per a debtor’s motion filed in the US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware in June.

Bankman-Fried was charged in December 2022 and accused of illegally funneling millions of dollars from FTX customer funds into his trading firm, Alameda.

The disgraced crypto entrepreneur is scheduled to go on trial on Tuesday, where he will face seven criminal charges ranging from securities fraud to money laundering. He has pleaded not guilty to these charges.