Almost exactly a year ago, FTX was on top of the world. With crypto prices and optimism surging, the company raised money at a $32 billion valuation. That valuation made the company's founders, employees, investors and celebrity endorsers extremely rich. On paper. That valuation, gave FTX's co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried a paper net worth of $25 billion, enough to temporarily make him one of the 50 richest people in the world.
During those heady times, FTX used its soaring valuation and clout to sign some of the world's biggest celebrities to lucrative endorsement deals. You know this. In the three month period between December 2021 and February 2022, it was nearly impossible to turn on the TV or visit a website without being punched in the face with an FTX commercial starring some huge new celebrity.
Here's just a quick list of some of the superstar celebrities who appeared in commercials for FTX:
- Steph Curry
- Shaquille O'Neal
- Naomi Osaka
- Shohei Ohtani
- Trevor Lawrence
- Kevin O'Leary
- David Ortiz
- Larry David
And of course, the most famous FTX celebrity endorsers were….
Tom Brady and his then-wife, Gisele Bundchen
Ever since FTX's sudden collapse in November, 2022, there has been a natural curiosity around the size and scope endorsement deals. How much did all these celebrities make to endorse a company that would collapse into bankruptcy less than a year later? How much did Tom and Gisele earn to become not just regular old endorsers but "Brand Ambassadors"?
Thanks to recently filings in FTX's bankruptcy case, some answers are finally starting to trickle out…
(Photo by Matt Winkelmeyer/MG18/Getty Images for The Met Museum/Vogue)
FTX's Biggest Investors
A court filing released Monday as part of FTX's ongoing bankruptcy proceedings revealed the former company's biggest inside equity investors. All of these investors' stakes are soon-to-be totally wiped out. Zeros. Bagels. Here is a link to the full document if you are curious.
Thanks to this filing, we now know the following:
Patriots owner Robert Kraft owned 110,000 shares of Series B preferred shares through his investment vehicle KPC Venture Capital LLC.
Billionaire investor Dan Loeb owned 6.1 million shares through his firm, Third Point.
Rival crypto exchange Coinbase owned 1.3 million preferred shares.
Billionaire investor Paul Tudor Jones owned 476,000 shares.
The Ontario Teachers Pension Plan owned 558,000 shares.
SoftBank had 215,000 shares.
Shark Tank star Kevin O'Leary received 32,000 shares.
Listed between hedge funds Tiger Global (roughly 600,000 shares) and Tribe Capital (roughly 580,000 shares) is the name "Tom Brady". No middle name (not sure if he has one) and his contact info is listed "Address on file," presumably for privacy reasons.
Over to the right of his name is a number of common shares belonging to Mr. Brady. That number is:
1,144,861 shares
Listed between something called GGC International (9,500 shares… chumps!) and Govinda, LTD (20,000 shares) is the name "Gisele Caroline Bundchen." Also "Address on file." Gisele's share total is…
686,761 shares
That's a combined total of 1,831,622 common shares of FTX.
Tom and Gisele's Lost Fortune
Using some recent public statements made by "Shark Tank" star Kevin O'Leary, we can extrapolate just how lucrative Tom and Gisele's combined 1.8 million shares could have been.
To repeat, thanks to today's filing we now know that Kevin O'Leary had 32,000 shares FTX. Last month, Kevin told the United States Senate banking committee that his equity shares in FTX were at one point worth $1 million. Using some quick math, that means the private share price of FTX was at one point around $31.25.
If that's true, Tom and Gisele's combined 1,831,622 shares were worth…
$57,238,187.5
But that's not all! That's just their equity compensation.
If you want peak Tom Brady and Gisele Bundchen to be your Brand Ambassadors, you also need to chip in some regular compensation.
We know this because in Kevin O'Leary's Senate testimony, he claimed to have lost $15-18 million of his FTX compensation from the company's fallout. In that same testimony he said his equity was worth $1 million. So the one can presume the remaining $14-17 million was compensation in the form of crypto. Very likely, FTX's proprietary digital currency FTT, which has been completely obliterated.
If we assume a celebrity on the level of Kevin O'Leary was able to secure approximately $14 million in "other" compensation on top of equity, how much might you guesstimate was paid to Tom and Gisele?
Would you presume twice that amount? If we presume that Tom and Gisele each CONSERVATIVELY also got $25 million in other compensation, that would bring their combined total payday to…
$107 million
Again, these are rough approximations using Kevin O'Leary as a comp. If we are in the ballpark though, we're talking about a 9-figure payday wiped out in a matter of hours.
On the plus side, Tom and Brady are no longer a couple. So at least they don't have to look at each other in the face every morning knowing they blew 9 figures puting their integrity on the line for a chubby, curly-haired, polyamorous alleged fraudster!
