In a motion filed on October 10, the attorneys for Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) asked the court to enable the introduction of evidence supporting investment in the artificial intelligence (AI) startup Anthropic.
This comes after United States prosecutors filed a request on October 9 to prevent SBF’s legal team from arguing about the recovery of FTX customer funds via the Anthropic investment.
Bankman-Fried invested $500 million in the AI startup in April 2022, before the collapse of the exchange. The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) is scheduled to present evidence that the investment was made with customer deposits that were fraudulently obtained.
However, attorneys attest that the government’s position “miscasts” the relevance of the evidence and have “respectfully” requested that the court deny the government’s motion.
Throughout the trial, they maintained that the government had increased Alameda’s venture investments multiple times and argued that they were “risky” and “losing money.”
“In response, the defense should be permitted to introduce evidence of positive investment outcomes (i.e. Anthropic) of such venture investments…”
Anthropic has recently garnered significant investments totaling $4 billion from e-commerce titan Amazon and $100 million from South Korean telecommunications titan SK Telecom.
The attorneys for SBF stated that the defense has no objections to the court issuing an “appropriate limiting instruction” regarding the admissibility of Anthropic investment evidence.
On October 11, the second week of the former FTX CEO’s criminal trial continues. SBF has pleaded not guilty to seven counts of conspiracy and fraud related to the collapse of FTX.
