Is Graham Stephan In Trouble Because Of His Endorsements?

According to a CNBC report on November 21, 2022, the collapse of crypto exchange FTX brought about it total unsecured claims amounting to US$ 3.1 billion. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier that month.

FTX’s former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, fooled a lot of investors on that actual financial status of FTX. He was once heralded by many as a gentle and unassuming financial genius who drove a beat up Toyota instead of driving a flashy car which once befits his status.

Even his rumored ex-girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, a top executive of Alameda of which Sam Bankman-Fried is also the former CEO is being questioned. Many have questioned her character regarding her drug and alleged sex habits.

And where does Graham Stephan has got to do with FTX? He is one of the many finance social media influencers that FTX sponsored in exchange for their endorsement of the company. In fact, FTX is a prominent endorser of Graham Stephan.

He has a high school degree but without a college. He opted out of college to become a real estate millionaire. As you can see, he already has the persona of a good social media influencer: one who defied the system and won.

He has a very strong social media following. Even with his involvement with the now collapsed FTX, he still has over 4.14 million subscribers in YouTube alone. He is still a prominent finance social media influencer.

He is very famous for proclaiming the virtues of frugality. For example, he makes his own cheap coffee instead of buying it from a coffee shop. He has even built a business out of selling cheap coffee, more on this later.

In his YouTube channel, he frequently talks about money matters like real estate investing, of which he has actual years of successful experience. But there are those that state that the reason for his success was because there was a real estate boom during his time.

He also talks about investing and money related news. He also frequently talks about how one’s extravagant lifestyle can lead to one’s financial downfall. He even interviews successful entrepreneurs at times.

As already stated, Graham is one of the many finance social media influencers sponsored by FTX. In exchange for sponsorship money, he endorses investing in FTX and even has the FTX logo prominently displayed on his YouTube videos.

Coffeezilla, a famous YouTuber and an influencer himself who specializes in finance scams recently exposed finance social media influencers who endorsed FTX including Graham Stephan in his video: Sorry You’re Bankrupt.

Coffeezilla also exposed other influencers of whom some he personally know. He named and showed pictures of these influencers and even talked about how they endorsed FTX. For example, he talked how these influencers endorsed Sam Bankman-Fried based on his car.

At this stage Coffeezilla has more YouTube legitimacy than any of these so-called finance social media influencers. He even has over 1.45 million followers to boot. He has also been sued at times by the very scammers he is exposing.

Coffeezilla also reported that FTX was paying these finance social media influencers up to a minimum of US$ 50,000 a month for the small YouTube Channels. Coffeezilla hinted that some of the bigger finance social media influencers could be receiving up to millions of dollars.

Another YouTube influencer, Scott Shafer, called out Graham Stephan this time regarding the so-called finance experts he endorsed. Here is his video: YouTube Scammer FINED $53 MILLION! Graham Stephan & Shelby Church Amazon FBA.

Scott Shafer even prominently showed the picture of Graham Stephan and Shelby Church, who is another finance social media influencer who also endorsed Kevin David. She also has failed investments.

Back to Graham Stephan and Kevin David. Graham actually made a video endorsing the scammer Kevin David who scammed his customer of US$ 53 million. Before being caught, he was making guaranteed promises that his courses and services could make anyone rich.

He is just some of the people that Graham fully endorsed. Graham so promoted Kevin that he even stated that he drove 2.5 hours just to see the mansion of Kevin. He even bragged that Kevin is so rich that he even has a small bridge in his mansion.

Of course the real question we should ask regarding Graham’s endorsement of FTX and Kevin David is: “Did he do due diligence when endorsing these companies and scammers or was it all for sponsorship money?”

John Coogan, a rising YouTuber and a successful startup founder and investor himself made a video about fake gurus titled: Fake Gurus: Where is the Line? Towards then end of his video he talks about Graham Stephan.

Besides this, he even prominently displayed the image of Graham Stephan alongside Elon Musk in the icon of his YouTube video. It is very clear that he is zeroing in on Graham Stephan being a very successful social media influencer.

In his video, John showed the faces of many questionable finance social media influencers of which he also includes Tai Lopez. He gives special attention to this person which he claims as the “Father Of Fake Gurus”.

Back To his endorsement of Graham Stephan, he claims that Graham Stephan’s finance endorsements are conservative. According to John, Graham can aggressively endorse if he wants to and his legion of followers would instantly follow it.

To be honest, the video of John Coogan defending Graham Stephan is four months old before the collapse of FTX and the discovery that Kevin David is a scammer. I wonder what John is thinking about Graham now? One thing is for sure though, Graham has plenty of supporters.

By endorsing FTX and Kevin David before, he will forever be linked with scammers as one of their endorsers. Did Graham know that the company and people he is endorsing are scammers or was he fooled as well?

It is a well known fact that Graham Stephan legitimately earned his millions via the real estate business although there are those that state that he only got lucky because the real estate industry was booming back then.

In his YouTube videos, there are even times when he questioned and talked about the advice given by other finance gurus or social media influencers. He would talk with and analyze for example the finance advise being given by Dave Ramsey and others just like him.

Also, detractors of Graham like to point out that he is getting more interested in the moneymaking side of being a social media influencer than helping his followers with financial advise.

For example, he used to have a no frills coffee attitude but when he started a coffee business he started also selling merchandise associated with his coffee business like mugs of which many claims invalidate his no frills cheap only coffee lifestyle.

It is plain to see that Graham Stephan is one of the many finance social media influencers whose reputation has been soiled due to their involvement with FTX, but lightning stroke twice for Graham.

His endorsement of the scammer Kevin David also soiled his reputation. Again this is the question that should be asked: “Did Graham Stephan did his due diligence when he endorsed this company and scammer or was he also fooled by them?”

Will Graham’s other past, current and future endorsements turn out to be financial scams or duds as well? If you follow Graham or just plain know him, would you still follow his endorsements and the endorsements of other finance social media gurus as well?

You might also like to read the article:

Ramon Van Meer: A Millionaire by Flipping Websites And Pet Products

Type the search keywords: ”Ramon Van Meer”in Google and YouTube and you would instantly realize how popular Ramon Van Meer is in the American online world in terms of being a successful online entrepreneur...