Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital Was Spiraling, and Then Came FTX
The hedge fund’s bad crypto bets—and a reputational hit from its partnership with Sam Bankman-Fried—have investors looking for the exit.
Scaramucci, founder of SkyBridge Capital.
Photographer: Christopher Goodney/Bloomberg
On Jan. 31, Anthony Scaramucci sat onstage at a hedge fund conference in Miami, answering questions about, among other things, his former business partner Sam Bankman-Fried. Seven weeks earlier, Bankman-Fried had been arrested for allegedly stealing billions of dollars from clients of FTX, the crypto brokerage he founded. A few months before that, he’d bought a 30% stake in Scaramucci’s SkyBridge Capital, which earns fees by investing in hedge funds and digital assets.
Despite the recent drama, the Mooch, as he’s known, looked relaxed in a Brioni suit and Prada lug-soled loafers, his forehead Botoxed to a smoothness unnatural in a 59-year-old. “I’m not gonna let Sam or anybody, any bad outcome like that, dissuade me from further risk-taking or some big opportunities,” he said. Or, as he’d put it on a recent episode of the finance podcast Capital Allocators: “I’m like a f---ing cockroach. If you think I’m going down after the nuclear bomb goes off, you’ve mis-sized me. I’m a little tough son of a bitch, and so I will find a way hook or crook to make this work for the firm.”