FTX spokesman Kevin O’Leary says he lost his $15 million payday from the firm

As an investor, “Shark Tank” judge, and CNBC contributor, Kevin O’Leary said Thursday that he had lost all $15 million FTX paid him to serve as its spokesman. O’Leary and other celebrities, such as Tom Brady and Larry David, were sued by FTX investors. They say the exchange’s ambassadors should have done more due diligence and exercised proper care before promoting the crypto empire.

CNBC’s “Squawk Box” hosts grilled the Canadian investor about his failure to properly assess the risks associated with investing in FTX. O’Leary said that he fell prey to “groupthink,” and that none of his investment partners had lost money. “Total deal was just under $15 million, all in,” O’Leary said. “I put about $9.7 million into crypto. I think that’s what I lost. I don’t know. It’s all at zero.” He also said he had more than $1 million of FTX equity, now rendered worthless by the bankruptcy protection process. According to O’Leary, a little over $4 million balance was purportedly eaten up by taxation and agent fees. O’Leary promoted FTX aggressively on Twitter and online, touting his close connection with disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is facing multiple investigations. When O’Leary first began to promote FTX, he said it was FTX’s compliance systems that drew him to invest in the crypto exchange. “Finally solved my compliance problems with #cryptocurrencies,” O’Leary wrote on LinkedIn in a since-deleted August 2021 tweet. Eventually, Delaware bankruptcy protection filings by new FTX CEO John Ray III would term FTX’s risk, audit, and compliance procedures “a complete failure of corporate controls.” “It was not a good investment,” O’Leary said Thursday.