Semafor

Semafor is a news company founded by Justin Smith, former chief executive of Bloomberg Media, and Ben Smith, former editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News and columnist at the New York Times; the two are not related. It launched on October 18, 2022 with a staff of 60 and 25 million dollars in private capital.¹

Launch investors

The first round came from the Atlantic chairman emeritus David Bradley, The Information founder Jessica Lessin, John Thornton, founder of the American Journalism Project, Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of FTX, and 3G Capital co-founder Jorge Paulo Lemann, as well as Justin Smith. Gina Chua was executive editor, Benjy Sarlin Washington bureau chief, Liz Hoffman business editor, Reed Albergotti technology editor and Steve Clemons editor at large. Justin Smith said the name meant "the bearer of a signal" and was "the same word in 35 different languages."¹

Bankman-Fried stake

After the collapse of FTX, Justin Smith wrote to staff on December 2, 2022 that the company had "set up a series of firewalls to ensure independence from our investors" and that Bankman-Fried "has no influence over our editorial coverage or operations"; Semafor said it would let "government investigations determine what happens with Bankman-Fried's investment."² On May 24, 2023 Semafor announced a 19-million-dollar round, bringing its total raised to 34 million dollars after "the repurchase of the approximately $10 million in funds from Sam Bankman-Fried," which Semafor said would be "returned to FTX creditors as directed by officials." The new investors were Gallup; Henry Kravis, co-founder of KKR; Jamal Daniel, founder of Crest Media and owner of Al-Monitor; Jerry Yang of Yahoo and AME Cloud Ventures; Lemann again; and Stand Together, the philanthropic network founded by Charles Koch.³

Coverage of effective altruism and technology

On December 7, 2025 Semafor's media reporter Max Tani reported that the Tarbell Center for AI Journalism, mostly funded by Open Philanthropy as Coefficient Giving, had placed fellows at Time, Bloomberg, The Verge, the Los Angeles Times and The Information, and that Semafor itself had briefly hosted a fellow, ending the agreement "after several weeks without publishing any of their work." Coefficient's communications director, Naina Bajekal, said: "We have no involvement in coverage decisions."⁴ Semafor has also reported on Jaan Tallinn's AI investments and donations (April 2023), a lawsuit against Charles C. Johnson (October 2024) and a private club founded by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman (August 2025).⁵⁶⁷ On September 3, 2026 Ben Smith published an interview with Coefficient Giving's chief executive, Alexander Berger.⁸