Business

Warren Buffetts right-hand man Charlie Munger continues to celebrate cryptos demise and cites the famous analogy of the Fed, the party and the punch bowl

Warren Buffetts right-hand man and Berkshire Hathways vice chairman Charlie Munger has been a vocal critic of cryptocurrencies, previously likening them to venereal disease and saying that anyone who sells crypto is either delusional or evil.

In the wake of FTXs collapse this month, Munger is doubling down on those criticisms.

Its partly fraud and partly delusion, he told CNBC on Squawk Pod. Thats a bad combination. I dont like either fraud or delusion, and the delusion may be more extreme than the fraud.

Munger added that he does not believe crypto is a real assetand it should have never been allowed.

This is a very, very bad thing, Munger said. The country did not need a currency that was good for kidnappersThere are people who think theyve got to be on every deal thats hot. They dont care whether its child prostitution or bitcoin. If its hot they want to be on it. I think thats totally crazy.

When it comes to the Federal Reserve though, Munger had kinder things to say than some of his other billionaire investor counterparts.

He argued against the idea that the Fed should be blamed for potentially pushing the economy into a recession in an effort to get inflation down to 2%.

The Fed is willing to have a little recession in order not to have out-of-control inflationthats what theyre supposed to do, he said. Theyre supposed to be the one guy at the party that doesnt hang around the punch bowl getting drunk.

His remark references an old saying that its the Feds job to take away the punch bowl just as the party gets going, derived from a 1955 speech by Fed Chair William McChesney Martin, Jr. to describe the institutions responsibility to prevent high inflation.

But when CNBCs Becky Quick responded that a lot of people say the Fed is the one who provided the punch bowl, Munger said: I think thats pushing it.

We were in enough trouble when this thing started, that if the Fed hadnt done what it didwhich was very aggressivewe would have had one hell of a mess, which would have been way worse than what we have now, he said.

Inflation hit a year-over-year four decade high in June at 9.1% before slowing to 7.7% in October. That has stirred hopes and expectations that the Fed could pivot, and slow their pace of rate hikes, after an aggressive approach this year that lifted the benchmark rate to a range of 3.75% to 4%.

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Early birds for the winhere's why you shouldn't skip your morning workout

A few months ago I noticed I was having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. When I stopped to reflect on why or what Id done differently in my routine, I realized Id skipped my regular morning workout. Whether its walking my daughter to daycare, hopping on my Peloton, or hitting sun salutations on my yoga mat, movement is a requisite part of my morning.

I can tell myself Ill do a midday workout, but the truth is I never get around to it and by the time night rolls around you can forget about it. Ive always known Ive felt better after a morning workout, and as it turns out theres science that proves it.

According to a study published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, people who exercise in the morning have a lower risk of heart problems or stroke. Researchers looked at the physical activity levels of more than 85,000 people between the ages of 42 and 78 who wore fitness trackers for a week.

Participants were divided into four groups: those who were most active in the early morning (around 8 a.m.); mid-morning (around 10 a.m.); midday and in the evening (around 7 p.m.). Those who exercised before noon were determined to have a lower risk of developing heart problems, such as a heart attack. The findings were especially prominent in women and applicable to both early birds and night owls.

After the initial exercise timing was recorded, participants were monitored for six to eight years. Nearly 3,000 people developed heart problems and almost 800 had a stroke. When looking at a 24-hour period, researchers determined that being active between 8 a.m. and 11 a.m. was most beneficial for lowering risk of heart disease and stroke.

Clocking your workout at the beginning of your day instead of hitting snooze has additional benefits, such as increased focus and decision making; better sleep; and the release of happiness hormones, such as endorphins, serotonin and norphenylephrine.

The study also found that participants with the highest daily physical activity performed during the late morning had a 16% decrease risk of coronary artery disease and a 17% decreased risk of stroke compared with participants who worked out midday, thus suggesting that the timing of your workout could be just as important as the workout itself.

Our findings add to the evidence on the health benefits of being physically active by suggesting that morning activity, and especially late morning, may be the most advantageous, lead researcher Gali Albalak said in a press release about the study. It is too early for formal advice to prioritize morning exercise as this is quite a new field of research. But we hope that one day we can refine current recommendations simply by adding one line: when exercising, its advised to do so in the morning.

Elon Musk says he'll replace himself as Twitter CEO 'over time' as he defends $55 billion Tesla pay package

Tesla CEO Elon Musk took the witness stand Wednesday to defend himself in a shareholder lawsuit challenging a compensation package he was awarded by the companys board of directors that is potentially worth more than $55 billion.

Musk denied that he dictated terms of the compensation package or attended any meetings at which the plan was discussed by the board, its compensation committee, or a working group that helped develop it.

I was entirely focused on the execution of the company, he said.

Plaintiffs attorney Greg Varallo spent much of his early cross-examination trying to draw Musk into admitting that he controls Tesla to such an extent that he can sway the board to do his bidding. Among other things, Varallo questioned Musk about his title of Technoking, a role that Musk has previously noted comes with panache and great dance moves.

I think comedy is legal, Musk told Varallo, who had questioned whether Musk was stone-cold sober when he came up with the title.

Varallo also suggested that one of the reasons that Musk developed a master plan for Tesla was to let people know he was in charge. He also noted that Musk makes recommendations regarding compensation for senior executives, and that he unilaterally made the decision to pause Teslas policy of accepting bitcoin from vehicle purchasers.

Youre asking complex questions that cant be answered yes or no, Musk said when Varallo asked whether he came up with the vision for Tesla.

The lawsuit alleges that the performance-based stock option grant was negotiated by the compensation committee and approved by Tesla board members who had conflicts interest due to personal and professional ties to Musk, including investments in his companies. It also alleges the shareholder vote approving the compensation plan was based on a misleading proxy statement.

The shareholder plaintiff alleges that the proxy wrongly described members of the compensation committee as independent, and characterized all of the milestones that triggered vesting in the stock options as stretch goals meant to be difficult to achieve, even though internal projections indicated that three operational milestones were likely to be achieved within 18 months of the stockholder vote.

Attorneys for the defendants have noted that two institutional proxy advising firms that urged shareholders to reject the plan nevertheless noted that it would require significant and perhaps historic achievements and require growth that appear stretching by any benchmark.

The plan called for Musk to reap billions if Tesla hit certain market capitalization and operational milestones. For each incidence of simultaneously meeting a market cap milestone and an operational milestone, Musk, who owned about 22% of Tesla when the plan was approved, would get stock equal to 1% of outstanding shares at the time of the grant. His interest in the company would grow to about 28% if the companys market capitalization grew by $600 billion.

Each milestone in the plan includes growing Teslas market capitalization by $50 billion and meeting aggressive revenue and pretax profit growth targets. Musk would receive the full benefit of the pay plan, $55.8 billion, only if Tesla hit a market capitalization of $650 billion and unprecedented revenue and earnings within a decade.

To date, Tesla has achieved all 12 of the market capitalization milestones and 11 operational milestones, resulting in the vesting of 11 of the grants 12 tranches and providing Musk over $52.4 billion in stock option gains, according to the lawsuit. Since the grant was awarded, Teslas market capitalization has increased from $59 billion to more than $613 billion now, having briefly hit $1 trillion early this year. Musk has sold Tesla stock to finance the Twitter purchase, adding downward pressure on the shares.

Shares of Tesla and other automakers have been battered this year, but the Austin, Texas, company earned $5.5 billion in 2021, blowing away the previous years profit of $721 million. It also produced a record 936,000 vehicles, nearly double vehicle production in 2020.

Attorneys for the plaintiff have suggested that incentivizing Musk to remain at Teslas helm by offering a huge compensation package was unnecessary, because hes never suggested that he might leave. Theyve also suggested that Musks true motive in negotiating the package was to fund his dream to colonize Mars.

In a November 2017 email to former Tesla General Counsel Todd Maron, Musk expressed optimism that the compensation package would be seen in a favorable light.

Given that this will all go to causes that at least aspirationally maximize the probability of a good future for humanity, plus all Tesla shareholders will be super happy, I think this will be received well, he wrote, adding that it should come across as an ultra bullish view of the future.

While on the stand, Musk also said that he does not want to be the CEO of any company.

I expect to reduce my time at Twitter and find somebody else to run Twitter over time, Musk said, according to multiple media reports.

Changpeng CZ Zhao won this crypto war. Is he any better than Sam Bankman-Fried?

The man sipping espresso in a posh London hotel looked like any high-flying executive, in his dark suit and tie, iPhone at the ready. It was a far cry from the trademark look of Changpeng Zhao, CEO and cofounder of the worlds biggest crypto exchange, Binance: sneakers and a black hoodie.

The makeover was necessary, Zhao explained over breakfast with Fortune earlier this year, because he was headed to a day of meetings and a cheese-and-wine reception with British lawmakers and business leaders, in a country where Binance was under scrutiny, and legally barred from soliciting clients. Then, Zhao, or CZ as hes commonly known, pushed up his shirt sleeve to show the Binance logo tattooed on his right forearm: He was still a rebel at heart.

As of last week, you can add another description to Zhaos complicated public persona: FTX killer.

Amid the implosion of Sam Bankman-Frieds crypto exchange, Zhao has emerged as the one true victor for nowa spectacular turn of events in under two weeks. FTXs epic collapse sent the wealth of its founder and CEOZhaos arch-rivalinto free fall as $15.5 billion of Bankman-Frieds wealth evaporated in days. Countless FTX investors and customers have little hope of recovering their funds soon, if ever. On Friday, FTX declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and it is possible SBF (to use Bankman-Frieds moniker) could do prison time in the U.S. for committing wire fraud, if authorities find that he used customers money to plug his ballooning corporate debts.

Contrast that to Zhao. Binances chief executive is now worth an estimated $17.7 billion (down from $77 billion back in March, thanks to the crypto markets drubbing in the months since). With FTX obliterated, Zhaos five-year-old company has for the moment crushed its closest competitor, trading about $13.56 billion of coins and tokens in the latest 24-hour period, in comparison with FTXs zero.

No heroes in crypto

In every gladiator war, there is a bloodied loser left trampled on the ground. But this battle has also brought a drastic role reversal that is perhaps even more important to Zhao than eclipsing his key rival and business threat.

Until this month, SBF, 30, had cast himself as the responsible straight shooter within cryptos wild West, cultivating ties with politicians and philanthropists, and bailing out troubled competitors. Raised in China and Canada, Zhao, 45, has seemed an enigmatic outsider to many business leaders, at least in the U.S. He has few deep ties there, and his trading business has regularly been suspected of failing to block sanctioned companies.

Now, the FTX blowout has handed CZ a rare gift: The chance to reframe himself as the leader the industry needs, in order to dig itself out of the morass.

For years, Binance has been under investigation in multiple countries, including the U.S., with authorities accusing it of failing to stop users from laundering money on its platform, failing to establish a fixed operational headquarters, and skirting sanctions laws. Reuters reported earlier this month that Binance has processed about $7.8 billion in Iranian-bought crypto since 2018. The Paris arbitration lawyer Aija Lejniece, who represents Binance users suing the company over a site outage, told Fortune earlier this year she believed CZ used jurisdiction hopping as a strategy to shield the company from legal accountability. (CZ told a live Twitter Spaces session on Monday that he had set up multiple headquarters and offices, the main ones in Dubai and Paris, but in a global operational sense we use a distributed workforce.)

A relationship gone sour

Bankman-Fried was a perfect foil to CZ. At one time, the crypto titans were reportedly friends and confidantes, which added an element of Shakespearian betrayal to the recent drama between the two. (CZ appeared on Fortune Magazines cover last April, and SBF was on the August cover.)

Fortunes April/May and August/September covers.

CZ: Photograph by Hayley Benoit; SBF: Photograph by Spencer Heyfron

Until the FTX collapse, SBF stood out from the crowd of libertarian, tech-obsessed crypto types. Gregarious and politically progressive, he came across as the nerdy-but-nice guy from your college dorm, with a shambolic mop of curls, and baggy shorts and T-shirts as his business attire. He was the son of two Stanford law professors and was raised in the heart of Silicon Valley, then graduated from MIT with a degree in physics. He ran FTX out of a group penthouse in tax-haven Bahamasa detail deemed colorful, rather than alarming, until this month.

SBF was also a regular in Washington, where he hobnobbed with lawmakers and high level officials. Bankman-Fried became one of the Democratic Partys biggest donors, and testified before Senate committees (in jacket and tie) about the industry. He even inked a $135-million FTX naming rights deal for the Miami Heats basketball arena. Meanwhile, Zhaos Chinese heritage made it harder for him to find allies in Washington.

To crypto watchers, one of the many dizzying experiences of the past week has been witnessing the drastic switch-around of two titans whose actions led to the meltdown. It is a massive thing we have just had, Jon De Wet, chief investment officer at the Australian digital wealth manager Zerocap, told Fortune on Sunday. This is the global financial crisis moment for crypto.

It began Nov. 2, when the crypto news site CoinDesk revealed that much of the $14.6 billion in assets at Bankman-Frieds trading company Alameda Research was comprised of FTXs own crypto token, FTT. That prompted CZ to announce on Twitter, to his 7.7 million followers, that Binance it would sell all its FTT tokens, sparking a run on FTX of more than $5 billion. By Nov. 8, Bankman-Fried had no way to cover customers withdrawal orders, and called Zhao for help. Zhao offered to have Binance bail out FTX through a fire-sale purchase deal. Just one day later, Zhao walked away from the arrangement, as a result of corporate due diligence, he tweeted.

It was not the first time the two mens fates were intertwined. Launching FTX two years after Binance, SBFs business rocketed fast, steadily muscling in on CZs dominance. Binance invested in FTX, and in public, CZ hailed FTXs rapid growth as good for the industry. But behind closed doors, Bankman-Fried reportedly fueled suspicions about CZ, in private meetings in Washington, according to sources cited by the New York Times.

Vanquished, SBF admitted to the Times this week that bad-mouthing his rivalwhose help he desperately needed in the endwas not a good strategic move on my part. It was a bitter breakup. After dumping a big portion of Binances FTX holdings, CZ tweeted coldly: We wont pretend to make love after divorce. FTX was as good as dead.

Well played; you won

With investors reeling in the aftermath, Zhao has raced to cement his role as the industrys adult in the room. He told a packed audience at the Indonesia Tech Summit in Bali last Friday that the industry has been set back basically a few years, but that it would emerge stronger in the long run, with fewer, more responsible playerspresumably, though CZ did not state it, with Binance as top dog.

But SBF is not CZs only detractor. At the Abu Dhabi Finance Week on Wednesday, the prominent economist Nouriel Roubini, CEO of Nouriel Macro Associates, called the Binance chief exec a walking time bomb who should be expelled from his Dubai base, and said crypto was an ecosystem that is totally corrupt. He later tweeted that Binance had allowed every sleazy activity to occur on their shady platform.

On Sunday CZ tweeted he was launching a crypto industry recovery fundapparently led by himselfto protect investors from blowouts like FTX, and called on others to join his effort. In addition, he told the Twitter Spaces audience that he was trying to form a global industry association in the crypto space, which would share companies proof of reserves, and enhance transparency.

Binances chief insists he did not manipulate FTXs downfall. I apologize for any turmoil I caused, he said on Monday on Twitter Spaces. Even me, I didnt know they were that insolvent until Sam called me. Bankman-Fried does not seem to buy that. On Twitter on Friday, he lashed out at his sparring partner saying: Well played; you won.

Escape from China

Born in small-town China, CZs family was relocated to a more rural village during the Cultural Revolution, he told me. His parents were both teachers. The lifestyle was basic, but we were never out of food, he said over breakfast in London. We had a rationing thing: You got a ticket to buy pork. We were not starving, right?

Zhaos father finally secured a visa to Canada to study for a Ph.D. in Vancouver, leaving behind his wife, CZ and CZs older sister. (CZ was born one year before Chinas one-child policy was extended to rural areas.)

Then came the Tiananmen Square massacre in June, 1989. Amid the global outrage, Zhaos mother seized the moment of openness to Chinese migrants, taking turns with her children to stand in line through the night outside the Canadian Embassy in hopes of getting a visa. You have to bring a chair, the line moves, you rotate, you take shifts, Zhao explained. It took 36 hours.

At 12, Zhao arrived in Vancouver speaking no Englishand never having tasted fresh milk, he told me. He describes his teenage years as a wondrous time, in which he captained the high-school volleyball team for four years, and earned straight As in science subjects. He flipped burgers at McDonalds and pumped gas in overnight shifts at a Chevron station, before studying at McGill University in Montreal.

He later worked in Tokyo, where he built trading software for the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and then worked in New York on trading programs for Bloomberg LP. He finally moved to Shanghai. That fact has nourished questions about CZs China links, against which he hit back hard in September. We have been designated a criminal entity in China, CZ wrote in a blog post. His sole citizenship is Canadian, and a company spokesman told Fortune on Wednesday that Binance has no office in China.

Some people insist on calling us a Chinese company,' CZ wrote, and in doing so, they dont mean well.

Very persistent

CZ claims he struggled with his move to Chinaa country his family had fled decades earlier. Returning to Asia was tough, he said over breakfast. I did not know the business culture and had to learn everything from scratch.

He describes himself as a tech guy at heart, and not good at relationships. Watching the crypto market heat up, he sold his Shanghai apartment for $1 million and poured the money into launching Binance in 2017.

His close friends barely grasped his idea, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. Daming Zhu, a Shanghai venture-capitalist and one of Zhaos former poker buddies in that city, told Fortune earlier this year that he plowed a million renminbi (about $141,000) into his friends crypto startup in 2017, and now regards it as the best investment I ever made. At the time, however, he says Zhaos friends knew nothing about crypto. None of us understood what he was doing, he said, but he was very persistent.

CZ will need that persistence to ride out cryptos gyrations. He is keenly aware that FTXs downfallin which he had a central parthas shattered investors trust in crypto, perhaps for some time. That, he said on the Twitter Spaces session on Monday, is unfair. He complained that media outlets have pilloried all crypto executives in the wake of Bankman-Frieds collapseand he drew a contrast to their coverage of Bernard Madoffs Ponzi-scheme hedge fund, which was cast as being just his own problem, not the industry problem.

Rebuilding trust in the industry will be Zhaos urgent task. But winning back investors trust could well mean relinquishing cryptos free-wheeling, unregulated statusfrom which he has hugely benefited until now. Last week he promised that Binance will start releasing its proof of reserves and called upon others to do the same. He has yet to do so, but in another move to show transparency, Binance did release proof of collateral for its Binance Bridge pegged tokens.

As he tries to step into the vacuum left by SBF, casting himself as the wise leader, it remains to be seen whether investors will be convinced. We dont regard other exchanges as competitors, he said on Twitter Spaces on Monday. For us, we are more focused on growing the industry.

Perhaps that is true. But one thing seems clear: FTXs obliteration is Binances gainwith Zhao the gladiator standing atop its bloodied corpse.

The man who killed FTX

Theyre like my big sister. After leaving Nike, Allyson Felix has found a home with Athletaand a new brand of her own

With eleven Olympic medals, Allyson Felix is the most decorated Track & Field Olympian in history. Now retired from the sport, Felix is using her partnership with athleisure brand Athleta to break new ground in sports sponsorship deals and in her advocacy for maternal health among athletes.

All too often, when brands consider success, they only think of the pure dollars of it all, Felix said Tuesday at Fortunes Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit in San Diego. In her Athleta partnership, she said, were focused on impact and change, and that doesnt always come through on paper.

For Felix, that means bringing attention and change to issues around maternal health and equity, particularly for Black women and athletes.

The financial burden of childcare is the biggest barrier between women athletes and continued high-level postpartum competition, Felix told NPR earlier this year. In track and field, the culture around pregnancy was silence. Athletes would either hide pregnancies to secure new contracts, or their [current] contracts were put on holdalmost like they had an injury.

Athleta CEO Mary Beth Laughton joined Felix on-stage Tuesday, reflecting on the brands first sponsorship of a professional athlete, now in its fourth year. Athleta set out to flip the script on traditional sponsorship from the beginning, Laughton told Fortunes Emma Hinchliffe.

The focus of the partnership, Laughton said, is how the brand can support Felix holistically, as an athlete as well as as a mother, entrepreneur and activist. As an example, she points to Athletas recent decision to offer childcare, with Vivvi, an employer-sponsored childcare company, offer free childcare at the USA Track and Field Championships this summer. Things like that are so meaningful, Laughton added.

Redefining partnership

Felix signed on with Athleta in 2019 after a high-profile contract dispute with Nike, her longtime sponsor, an episode she has described as disrespectful.

After suffering from severe preeclampsia, Felixs daughter was born via emergency C-section in November 2018. In the new contract with Nike, Felix said, the company offered a 70% pay cut and refused to honor the maternity protections she requested.

Felix penned a bombshell article for the New York Times about her heartbreaking experience negotiating her contract with Nike while pregnant. Following the publication of the piecewhich sparked a widespread outcry and a congressional inquiry Nike relented, adjusting its maternal policy and vowing not to reduce sponsor-athletes pay for nearly a year after they give birth.

But it was too late for Felix, who parted with Nike. She recalled that all of the Nike executives she was interacting with were men. If a woman was at that table, we probably wouldnt have had the same outcome.

Thats a sharp contrast to how she describes her partnership with Althleta: theyre like my big sister.

A new generation

In the three-plus years since Felix teamed up with Athleta, shes launched five collections and struck out on her own, with her own shoe and lifestyle brand Saysh. Saysh shoes, which Athleta carry in-store, represent Felixs commitment to womens needs.

Women deserve better. Shoessneakers specificallyhavent been made for women, she said. I learned that sneakers have been made off the mold of a mans foot, and I was just appalled by that. I guess it shouldnt be that surprising, because women are overlooked in a lot of industries, but I was just like, this has got to stop.

Felix won her 10th Olympic medal in Tokyo wearing Saysh shoes, which she calls the high point of her career. I was able to show women we can bet on ourselves and do things outside the box in a nontraditional way, she said. It was the physical embodiment of that.

Athletas Laughton said the partnership with Felix has helped shape the brands views of sports sponsorships. I dont see us partnering with someone who doesnt support our core values of womens empowerment, inclusivity and sustainability. That will always be the first criteria for us.

As for athlete mothers, Felix said the group, across different sports, has a lot of momentum. In the last couple of years, the amount of stories being told around athletes who are mothersI love to see that, she said, citing Serena Williams and Alex Morgan. I just love that my daughter is going to see that things will be different.

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Elon Musk sends middle-of-the-night email demanding 'extremely hardcore' work culture at Twitter with 'long hours at high intensity'

Twitters employees have been on a rollercoaster for a while now.

A months-long fight over whether or not Elon Musk would actually take over the company culminated in a sink photo op, half the company was laid off earlier this month, and employees openly critical of the new boss have been fired.

Last night, employees received another missive from the new chief, and a stark reminder that their work lives look very different now.

At 2 a.m. on Wednesday, Musk sent an email to all Twitter employees telling them to be extremely hardcore and work long hours at high intensity, the Washington Post reported.

With a subject line that read A fork in the road, the new owner of the social media giant asked employees to commit to rebuilding the company, according to CNBC.

The richest man in the world wrote that only exceptional performance will constitute a passing grade, pointing at the high bar he hopes to set in building Twitter 2.0. The revamped social media company will have a greater emphasis on design and product management by engineers who will report directly to him, Musk wrote.

Twitter did not immediately return Fortunes request for comment.

Musk has earned a reputation as a workaholic and a demanding manager, famously working long hours. Soon after he took over the company, a Twitter manager went viral for sleeping in the officesomething Musk says he has done in the past himself. And earlier this year, he demanded that all Tesla employees return to the office, saying that those who did not comply could work somewhere else.

Musk followed the companywide dispatch early Wednesday morning with an ultimatumemployees could either work longer days or leave the company receiving three months of severance. Those who were on board would need to indicate their interest via a link included in the email by Thursday 5 p.m.

The email comes days after Musk fired several Twitter employees who criticized him publicly. One of them was senior engineer Eric Frohnhoefer who had worked eight years at the company and was reportedly fired via tweet for pointing out Musks error on a technical problem. Musk later tweeted a sarcastic apology for firing geniuses, writing that their immense talent will no doubt be of great use elsewhere.

Since Musk took over Twitter on Oct. 28, he has fired nearly half the companys employees, swiftly rehiring some of them after realizing that the company was missing people to complete critical tasks.

He also announced sweeping changes to how Twitter accounts will be verified earlier this month, offering the famous blue check, previously only available through an application process, at a price of $7.99/month. Before Musk took over Twitter, the company only verified people who it deemed to be of public interest.

Within days, the misuse of bought check marks spun out of control. Fake accounts and imposters bought authentication marks pretending to be the likes of former U.S. President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bloomberg reported.

Major companies like Eli Lilly also fell prey to the abuse of paid verifications when a tweet by a fraud account posing to be the pharmaceutical company wrote: We are excited to announce insulin is free now.

The program was pulled back last week amidst growing cases of impersonation. Musk plans to relaunch Twitter Blue Verified on Nov. 29.

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1592658210917609472

'Dr Doom' says after SBF, crypto king CZ is a 'walking time bomb'

Famed prophet of financial doom Nouriel Roubini unloaded on a totally corrupt cryptocurrency industry and one of its most influential figures, Binance exchange founder Changpeng CZ Zhao.

Speaking at the Abu Dhabi Finance Week on Wednesday, he urged Emiratis to expel CZ before the crypto entrepreneur proved a liability much like the disgraced Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of bankrupt crypto trading platform FTX.

Roubini, a New York University economics professor, said he could not believe that CZas the Binance founder is knownis a resident of the United Arab Emirates and has a license to operate in the country.

Hes banned in the U.K., hes under investigation by the U.S. justice department for money laundering, $8 billion from Iran, and hes here on this stage and has residence in this country, Roubini said on Wednesday.

The choice for regulators in the UAE then is clear, in his opinion.

Hes a walking time bomb, he should be kicked out of the country, said the economist, who is known within the financial community by the Dr. Doom moniker.

He should not be allowed to operate, Im sorry to sayhes going to [be] worse than Sam Bankman-Fried.

Roubini, famous for his contrarian prediction of the global financial crisis, said the events surrounding the collapse of Bankman-Frieds FTX crypto exchange last week showed the ecosystem was totally corrupt.

He urged organizers of the Abu Dhabi event to therefore cease inviting representatives of the industry to the Finance Week conference.

What are the seven Cs of crypto? Concealed, corrupt, crooks, criminals, con men, carnival barkers and finally CZ, who was just on the stage right now said Roubini.

Separately, Zhao argued in a conversation with crypto investor Mike Novogratz that the greater scrutiny and regulatory oversight was not necessarily bad, as it could rebuild shattered trust in the industry.

Zhao is not leaving it to the regulators entirely, however.

During a briefing held on Twitter on Monday, the Binance founder said his team sought to increase transparency. In part this would happen through his decision to publish the companys cold wallet addresses so third parties could track the exchanges transactions on chain.

Furthermore in about two weeks, Zhao planned to issue a proof of reserves that he hopes will put to bed concerns over the stability of his companys exchange.

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