Yes, but conflicts of interest are often waivable—and I think this one would be. The risk was that MacAskill et al. would not impartially carry out their roles at FTXFF because of their involvement with EVF. If FTXFF (and its donors, who were by and large also its board members) wanted to waive that conflict, then that was fine. It and its donors were the only parties who might not be getting the conflict-free advice they were entitled to.
I don’t have any thoughts at the moment as to whether this was a good idea, but I don’t think “conflict of interest” or “self-dealing” is quite the right paradigm here.
Yes, but conflicts of interest are often waivable—and I think this one would be. The risk was that MacAskill et al. would not impartially carry out their roles at FTXFF because of their involvement with EVF. If FTXFF (and its donors, who were by and large also its board members) wanted to waive that conflict, then that was fine. It and its donors were the only parties who might not be getting the conflict-free advice they were entitled to.
I don’t have any thoughts at the moment as to whether this was a good idea, but I don’t think “conflict of interest” or “self-dealing” is quite the right paradigm here.