[Torre] Steve Ballmer quietly donated $1.875M to charity of Aspiration co-founder who “conned” him — 1.5+ years after Clippers ended deal, as feds closed in [in December 2024].

40 comments

  7. Let’s say I want to do Aspiration 2.0 legally. Could I simply get funding by owners and pay players for actual work? Could I just use a lawyer to set up the companies and hide the transactions?

  8. “I’ve never been conned like that before, very impressive! Here’s 1,875 million dollars, go buy yourself something nice kiddo! And good luck in any further scams!”

  9. Jesus. I think this is the part that changes the story from “just cap circumvention” to full on wire fraud.

  11. Don’t forget to mention that in the Clippers PR response back to Pablo, they disclosed a total of 4 total donations from Ballmer’s charity to Joe Sanberg’s charity from as early as late 2017.

    This means that Ballmer and Sanberg have had a long personal relationship.

  12. I wonder how long until the NBA flexes their muscle and Pablo isn’t allowed on ESPN anymore like they did with Jeff Van Gundy.

  14. So people are mad a billionaire for giving money to charity? Is that a crime? Is it a crime to want to help the world? Is it a crime to donate money to charity? Is a crime to fraudulently launder money through that charity?? Grow up!

  21. We live in a society where it’s better for a billionaire to just pretend to be completely incompetent rather than own up to a cheating allegation. Like, just think about that for a sec. Ballmer, who runs multiple companies, believes it’s worth it to just say “I got swindled like a punk” rather than accept any type of responsibility,

    Oh and some people believe there should be tax breaks for people like him.

  26. The whole podcast is wild, but this 4-minute clip is where I wonder if the NBA investigation is the *least* of Ballmer’s worries right now. Funneling money through a charity HAS to be a serious crime right?

  30. If someone is smart enough to con one of the richest men in the world, it’d be immoral not to contribute to their charity; we must support the brightest minds in our country.

  32. Y’all ever see *All the President’s Men*? (RIP Robert Redford)
    “The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.”

  33. Hiding behind a charity geared towards solving poverty to commit real fraud and circumvent the NBA salary cap so your stupid sports team has more chance to win is cartoonishly evil. Ballmer’s existence is antithetical to humanity’s

  34. lol idk if you guys saw the clipper’s super shill post about 2hrs before Torre published his pod saying that Torre has been awfully quiet and Balmer needs to sue him for defamation. I think he deleted his post either after everyone called him a billionaire defender.

  36. I don’t know how much evidence you need to say “yeah, dude is guilty”

    But like…. Does ANYONE think that the Clippers DIDN’T circumvent the salary cap?

  38. Each episode from Pablo just makes it worse and worse.

    I almost wonder if Pablo already has a few more episodes worth of material and is just dripping it out little by little……just to watch the Mark Cuban’s and Adam Silver’s scamper around and try to have explanations…..then drops another episode that shits all over the explanation.

    Honestly, I think they need to make Ballmer sell the team.

    The episode that came out today sorta answered the question of why they arrived at this $48-50MM amount. It was the difference between what Kawhi could resign with Toronto for versus what he could sign with the Clippers for. Kawhi wasn’t going to take less money, so they cooked up a scheme to give Kawhi equal money. Not only is that cap circumvention, it deliberately is undermining one of the elements that supposedly “we” all like: Teams can always pay their own free-agents MORE, so they have to take a pay-cut to leave. Except now, Kawhi didn’t actually have to take a pay cut to bail on Toronto.

    I mean, I know Toronto won the title with him, but they didn’t know that when they traded for him. Probably part of why they made that trade with his contract expiring was they felt they’d have the upper hand to retain him…….except they didn’t.

    The problem is the Clippers are already sorta cooked for the next few years since they traded away all their picks. So to punish them, you have to take picks from 2030 onward…..and that just fucks them for a decade basically. At that point, why even bother having a second team in LA?

  39. Amin is so hype man, like this guy would have epic bench reactions 

    He is so good playing the average man in the story

  40. As George W Bush once said: Scam me once, shame on you. scam me – you can’t get scammed again.

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