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Binance Subpoenas Kevin O’Leary and Michael Lewis in $1.76B FTX Suit
Binance and Changpeng Zhao subpoenaed Kevin O’Leary and Michael Lewis in a $1.76 billion FTX clawback case. A July ruling let the recovery claims proceed.
Binance and its founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ) subpoenaed investor Kevin O’Leary and author Michael Lewis in a $1.76 billion clawback lawsuit brought by FTX’s estate. Bloomberg Law reported the subpoenas on November 5.
- FTX’s estate seeks to recover at least $1.76 billion tied to a July 2021 share repurchase, alleging FTX was insolvent when it was funded.
- The subpoenas also reached accounting firm BDO USA PC and former Forbes Digital Assets Research Director Steven Ehrlich.
- A July 24 ruling by Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Karen B. Owens let the recovery claims against Zhao and four Binance entities proceed.
What Binance and CZ requested in the FTX lawsuit
Bloomberg Law reported that Binance and Zhao, its founder and former chief executive, subpoenaed O’Leary, a “Shark Tank” investor, and Lewis, author of “The Big Short.” It cited a notice filed on November 4 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware.
Other recipients included Ehrlich and BDO USA PC, an accounting and audit firm. Bloomberg Law described requests for “a host of records and information” from Ehrlich, O’Leary and BDO.
FTX Recovery Trust, which pursues recoveries for creditors, and FTX Digital Markets Ltd. are bringing the action. A successful clawback, meaning a court-ordered return of money paid earlier, would send assets to the plaintiffs for handling through the recovery process.
Why O’Leary and Lewis were named
O’Leary was an FTX investor and paid spokesperson before the exchange failed in November 2022. The following month, he disclosed an FTX promotional agreement worth approximately $15 million. He said he had put about $9.7 million into cryptocurrency and held more than $1 million in FTX equity, which he said became worthless after the bankruptcy.
O’Leary has blamed Binance for FTX’s fall before. In December 2022, he told the US Senate Banking Committee that he believed Binance put FTX out of business intentionally. The filings reported so far do not say what records Binance wants from him.
Lewis spent considerable time with FTX co-founder Sam Bankman-Fried while researching “Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.” The book was released in October 2023, nearly a year after FTX filed for bankruptcy.
The $1.76 billion claim and the July ruling
The suit, filed in November 2024, centers on a share repurchase agreed in July 2021. It covered a 20% stake in FTX’s international business and an 18.4% stake in its U.S. parent. The estate alleges Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried’s trading firm, funded the deal while FTX was already insolvent.
Payment came in FTX’s FTT token, Binance’s BNB token and BUSD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin. The plaintiffs call the deal a fraudulent transfer. Binance and Zhao contest the allegations and asked the court to dismiss the claims.
Judge Owens’s opinion, dated July 24, dismissed fraudulent-transfer counts against former Binance executives Samuel Wenjun Lim and Dinghua Xiao. It also dismissed separate state-law claims against the Binance defendants. The remaining allegations against Zhao and four Binance entities survived, leaving the dispute unresolved.
The trust also filed a $1.15 billion clawback lawsuit against Genesis Digital Assets and affiliates, alleging that Alameda-funded investments involved misappropriated customer money.
Zhao pleaded guilty in 2023 to failing to maintain an effective anti-money laundering program at Binance, and he received a presidential pardon in October 2025. The pardon covered his criminal conviction. This lawsuit is a separate civil case.
