Steve Ballmer and The Clippers Under NBA Investigation
The Los Angeles Clippers owner, Steve Ballmer, and the team are under investigation by the NBA. The league is analyzing a report that suggests Kawhi Leonard allegedly accepted a $28 million sponsorship deal from the company Aspiration, with the aim of evading the league’s salary cap. Ballmer, who had previously invested $50 million in Aspiration, has denied having knowledge of the agreement or having instructed the company to do it.Aspiration: What was it and who were its founders?
Aspiration Partners was founded in 2013 by Joe Sanberg, entrepreneur, and Andrei Cherny, a lawyer who worked as a speechwriter for the Clinton administration. The company was dedicated to offering “socially conscious and sustainable banking services and investment products,” according to its archived 2019 website. Its motto was: “Do good. Do well.” Sanberg served on Aspiration’s board of directors and owned approximately 30% of its shares in September 2021, according to court documents. Cherny was CEO of Aspiration for nearly a decade.Aspiration’s Business Model
Aspiration presented itself as a digital bank with environmental awareness. The company claimed that its customers’ deposits “would never finance fossil fuel projects such as pipelines, oil platforms, and coal mines.” Its products included savings accounts and debit cards with cash back from a select number of companies that “did the right thing”, as well as the option to plant a tree with each rounded purchase. It also offered access to “100% fossil fuel-free” investment funds.Featured Investors in Aspiration
Documents from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission reveal that Aspiration attracted investors such as Robert Downey Jr., Orlando Bloom, Leonardo DiCaprio, Doc Rivers, now coach of the Milwaukee Bucks, and Cindy Crawford with her daughter Kaia Gerber. Among its corporate partners were Meta, Microsoft, and, finally, Los Angeles Clippers.The Connection Between Ballmer, Leonard, and the Clippers
According to reports, Ballmer invested $50 million in Aspiration through his personal LLC on September 14, 2021. In that same month, the Clippers signed a $300 million deal with Aspiration, making it the “first founding partner” of the Intuit Dome. The agreement included a “Planet Protection Fund” so that fans could “offset their carbon impact every time they bought a ticket to cheer on the Clippers.” Ballmer stated that the partnership with Aspiration supported the goal of making the Intuit Dome the most sustainable stadium in the world. Ballmer stated that Aspiration asked him to introduce the company to Leonard, which occurred in November 2021. According to reports, Leonard agreed to a four-year, $28 million sponsorship deal with Aspiration through his LLC KL2 Aspire in April 2022, nine months after re-signing with the Clippers. An unidentified Aspiration employee stated that the payment to Leonard “was to circumvent the salary cap”. It was revealed that Clippers minority owner Dennis Wong also invested nearly $2 million in Aspiration through a personal LLC in 2022, nine days before Leonard received $1.75 million from the company. In March 2023, Ballmer invested an additional $10 million in Aspiration.NBA Reaction
The NBA is investigating whether Ballmer and the Clippers violated league rules. Commissioner Adam Silver stated that the league must prove any irregularity and analyze “the totality of the evidence”. Silver added that the league would be reluctant to act based solely on “a mere appearance of irregularity” and that a complete investigation is necessary to determine if there was actually any infraction. He also noted that the public sometimes reaches incorrect conclusions. Sources indicate that the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, based in New York, will conduct a thorough investigation, although there is no set deadline for completion.The Future of Aspiration
The co-founder and CEO, Cherny, left the company in 2022. Cherny stated that Leonard’s contract was not a “phantom” agreement and that it included “three pages of extensive obligations.” He affirmed that he signed the contract in 2022 after “numerous internal conversations about the various things Aspiration planned to do with Leonard.” Aspiration declared bankruptcy in March, with a reported debt of $170 million. At that time, the company owed the Clippers $30 million, the largest amount of all its creditors. The company also claimed it owed $7 million to Leonard’s LLC. Aspiration co-founder Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud. Federal prosecutors accused Sanberg of defrauding investors and lenders of $248 million, fraudulently obtaining loans, falsifying bank and brokerage statements, and concealing that he was the source of some income recorded by the company. Ballmer expressed his “shame” for not having detected problems when reviewing Aspiration’s financial statements and business plans.The NBA’s investigation is ongoing, and it is expected to shed light on the situation and determine if there were any violations of league rules.These guys ripped me off. They ripped me off,” Ballmer said. “I invested in these guys thinking everything was in order, and they ripped me off. I can’t predict why they might have done what they did, let alone the specific contract with Kawhi.
Steve Ballmer
