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As a complete outsider, what this sounds like to me is "This guy has got his fingers in the till". He's hired on someone who, demonstrably, is easily persuaded to go along with dodgy decisions, particularly where a personal relationship is involved, under the aegis of "but think how much good we are doing! can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, the end justifies the means, so on and so forth".
She is now in a position where she feels personal obligation to him*, a sense of gratitude, and maybe fear that this is her only second chance and if she blows it then she's finished. How much pressure would he have to exert to get her to go along with "Now, Caroline, I'm not saying you should do this, but wouldn't it be really the best decision all round for everyone if...."?
And then three to five years later we have another FTX type scandal on our hands, and all the mealy-mouthed piety about "I’d like to give her the opportunity to contribute back to the world" will sound like the hypocrisy it was, when the real rationale was "I wanted to hire on someone I could manipulate".
I am not saying this is what is happening, I'm giving the "moron in the street" view of how it will be received. "Bad optics", indeed. Yet more EA "we are so much smarter than the average bear, what could possibly go wrong?/how were we to know you shouldn't push the big red button?"
*In her own words from that link:
EDIT: Whooops, guy got funding from FTX which he has not returned (and is apparently being sued over returning fund). When even politicians were publicly giving back the gibs they received, in order to reduce the stink of criminality, this is a very bad look and reinforces my view "this bloke has got his fingers in the till and in a couple of years there will be another blow-up about missing/misappropriated/the money was only resting in my account funding".
In fact, there were two disputed Manifold donations: one was when Manifold Markets applied to FTX Philanthropy and got a total amount of €508,000 via two grants for the launch of a charity prediction market and prize payouts for a forecasting tournament. This is what the FTX bankruptcy lawyers are suing (since 2024) to get back, and Mr. Chen is saying "Nuh-uh, and my lawyer tells me to zip my lip about anything else".
The second was more convoluted, seeing as how a guy named Ross Rheingans-Yoo was recruited in 2022 by FTX Foundation. His contract said half his $1 million discretionary bonus would be paid to a charity of his choice. "In September 2022, after about five months of working with Rheingans-Yoo, SBF told him that as a bonus for the first half of 2022, he will receive $650,000 in cash, plus an additional $650,000 in targeted grants "to any effective altruism-driven charity of your choice."
Then later in 2022 FTX went kablooey, and like any decent EA philanthropist, Rheingans-Yoo immediately sued for what he claimed he was owed. Bankruptcy judge ruled okay, he should be paid, and "Rheingans-Yoo initially chose to donate the money to Manifold for Charity—the charitable branch of the prediction market platform Manifold Markets. This choice was not surprising, as Manifold is closely connected to the effective altruism community, and Rheingans-Yoo herself (sic) serves on the board of Manifold for Charity." FTX bankruptcy lawyers then went "Wait a minute, we're already suing these bozos for money, you can't give them more!". Rheingans-Yoo then went "okay, as a compromise, give it to a different charity". FTX lawyers went "nope" but eventually in 2025 the judge said "let him give it to who he likes". However, the FTX lawyers fired in an appeal, and God knows what will happen in the end, particularly as they're also suing Rheingans-Yoo over different funding for different organisations he also got from FTX.
Oh, and Rheingans-Yoo's younger brother also got in trouble over FTX funding, including 'his business partner was a former squeeze of SBF'.
This entire FTX/SBF débacle just never ends. This is why Chen hiring on Ellison for Manifund is really bad PR for EA causes, amongst everything else.
Chen does not seem to want to explain his position (he falls back a lot on "my lawyer says I can't comment"), but the impression I'm getting is a combination of "this is our money, it was given to us!" and "well it's all spent now so tough luck" which does not cause me to trust him more. Definite whiff of snake oil in the air, and as Emerson says "the louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons".
So this is not just "nice guy gives second chance to former EA starlet", this is "guy who benefited from FTX funding glommed onto the money and is refusing to pay it back, then hires on one of the people who was involved in the business of dodgy dealings". That's a much less noble version of events!
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