Microsoft’s former CEO Steve Ballmer is quite angry with Joseph Sanberg, the founder of once high-flying fintech startup Aspiration Partners. Ballmer invested millions in the Aspiration Partners, along with several other tech celebrities. Green fintech startup Aspiration Partners offered what it called sustainable banking services like credit cards and investment products that avoided fossil fuels. The startup promised to “automatically plant trees with every card purchase.” In 2021, it announced plans to go public via a SPAC merger at a value of $2.3 billion, a transaction that never took place.In August 2025, Sanberg pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud and defrauding multiple investors and lenders. Ahead of sentencing next week, investors who Sandberg defrauded were invited to describe their experience to the judge. Ballmer seemingly decided to do so publicly. In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Ballmer shared the letter his lawyers have sent on his behalf where he said that he has lost money, been vilified, and that the NBA is investigating allegations stemming from the association.
Excerpt from Steve Ballmer’s letter to the judge against Joseph Sanberg
Dear Judge Wilson:We write on behalf of our client Steven Ballmer in connection with the upcoming sentencing of defendant Joseph N. Sanberg, scheduled for April 27, 2026. Sanberg flagrantly defrauded Mr. Ballmer, and his actions have significantly damaged Mr. Ballmer’s reputation. We write to detail the nature of that harm, which we respectfully ask the Court to consider under 18 U.S.C. 3553(a) in imposing Sanberg’s sentence.Mr. Ballmer invested a total of $60 million in Aspiration because he believed in Aspiration’s stated environmental mission and because he believed Joe Sanberg’s representations about the financial bona fides of the company. Sanberg’s representations turned out to be lies, and what he promised by way of an environmental mission turned out to be nothing more than a lure to bilk Mr. Ballmer and others. As a result, Mr. Ballmer lost his entire investment in Aspiration-an investment that was intended to promote sustainability and benefit charitable causes. Mr. Ballmer is a clear and undisputed victim of Sanberg’s fraud—one of the single largest of Sanberg’s many victims. The SEC and DOJ have already acknowledged this, and Mr. Ballmer is included on the schedule of victims in this matter. While the immediate financial loss from Mr. Ballmer’s investments in Aspiration is substantial, the harm to Mr. Ballmer’s reputation is immeasurable. It is harm that persists to this day and will continue long after this matter, and Sanberg’s sentence, concludes.Connection with SanbergIn 2021, Sanberg personally joined and aggressively pursued on behalf of Aspiration the bidding process to acquire the naming rights to the new arena that would be the home for Mr. Ballmer’s NBA basketball team, the Los Angeles Clippers.Although Sanberg was the point person for Aspiration in the bidding process, Mr. Ballmer was not introduced to him until late 2021 at the conclusion of that bidding process. While Sanberg was pitching Aspiration as a worthy sponsor for the Clippers, Clippers employees – and through them Mr. Ballmer – became familiar with what appeared to be Sanberg’s shared interest in sustainability. Aspiration lost the bidding process for the naming rights to the Clippers’ new arena, but the Clippers were still looking for other sponsors for the team, and Mr. Ballmer saw synergy in choosing Aspiration, a company whose proclaimed environmental mission aligned with his own, as a premier sponsor. In fact, environmental causes are a passion for Mr. Ballmer, and as early as 2015, Mr. Ballmer began a years-long project to build a new state-of-the-art arena for the Clippers that would set the benchmark for the sustainability of professional sports venues. Among his top priorities was achieving LEED Zero status and complete carbon neutrality for the Clippers’ new arena. In addition, Mr. Ballmer set his sights on offsetting not only the carbon from building and operating both the new arena and the related Kia Forum concert venue (which Mr. Ballmer had recently acquired), but also the fifty-year historical footprint of the Clippers and their fans attending games dating back to the franchise’s nascent days when they played as the Buffalo Braves in Buffalo, New York—an extraordinarily ambitious goal.Sanberg was a persuasive salesman for Aspiration-and he apparently targeted Mr. Ballmer because of his well-known commitment to environmental stewardship and philanthropy. Sanberg recognized that Mr. Ballmer’s wealth, reputation for integrity, and genuine passion for sustainability would lend credibility to Aspiration. He convinced the Clippers organization and Mr. Ballmer’s financial advisors – like many other sophisticated investors lured by Sanberg – that Aspiration not only was focused on commendable environmental causes, but was in its own right a financial rising star with a roster of brand name investors.Indeed, before making any investment, Mr. Ballmer’s Barmith representatives conducted careful due diligence, reviewing Aspiration’s financial statements and related data provided by Aspiration’s investment bankers. We now know that many of those financials were largely fraudulent. But at the time, Sanberg’s representations about Aspiration’s health and prospects appeared to be backed up by hard numbers and credible bankers. For instance, Aspiration’s financial records reflected that the company had a portfolio of $1.5 to 2 billion in carbon credits.On that basis, Mr. Ballmer and the Clippers entered into several transactions with Aspiration. In September 2021, Aspiration and the Clippers signed an agreement whereby Aspiration would commit more than $300 million to become a founding partner of the Clippers and the long-term team sponsor for the jersey patches worn by the Clippers players. In addition, as part of Mr. Ballmer’s vision for the kind of environmental stewardship that a professional sports team can model, the Clippers entered into an agreement that same month whereby the team would purchase from Aspiration a sufficient number of carbon credits to offset the Clippers’ carbon emissions, both historically and going forward. This agreement was eventually expanded in early 2022 to erase the historical carbon footprint of the Kia Forum.Reputational HarmThe most persistent and damaging injury is to Mr. Ballmer’s reputation. When a prominent investor is misled into backing a venture under false pretenses, the predictable public narratives has been the case here is that the investor either knew or should have known about the misconduct. Let there be no mistake: Mr. Ballmer, just like the many other people whom Sanberg ripped off, knew nothing about his fraud. But the mere fact that Mr. Ballmer, in legal proceedings and in the public arena, has had to say that, and explain how and why he came to invest in Sanberg and Aspiration, is itself a large part of the damage that Sanberg has caused.Mr. Ballmer has spent his life building a reputation for honesty, accountability, and responsibility. He cares deeply about his community and the environment. And he is remarkably generous. That reputation has been damaged and much of what he has spent his life building has been turned inside out because he, like many others, placed his trust in Sanberg This reputational harm is not theoretical. Mr. Ballmer’s connection to Sanberg is what caused a former talking head and television personality, Pablo Torre, to launch a relentless vitriolic public campaign against Mr. Ballmer, alleging, principally based on anonymized gossip, as well as on a misapprehension or intentional disregard of the facts, that Mr. Ballmer conspired with Sanberg and Aspiration to engage in the circumvention of the NBA’s salary cap by virtue of an endorsement deal between Aspiration and one of the team’s star players, Kawhi Leonard.To further broadcast Mr. Ballmer’s alleged ties to Sanberg’s fraud, and likely because of his visibility and resources, Mr. Ballmer was added as a defendant to a civil lawsuit, Karr v. Sanberg, et al., Case No. 25STCV20376 (L.A. Super. Ct., filed July 9, 2025), brought by Aspiration investors, despite being a victim of the fraud himself who was defrauded of more money than any of the Karr plaintiffs, and having had no operational involvement or board seat at Aspiration. In the amended complaint in Karr, Mr. Ballmer is alleged to have aided and abetted Sanberg, and influenced others to invest in his scam, even though Mr. Ballmer never met with any of the plaintiff investors, and his own Investments occurred after almost all of the plaintiffs’ investments. Those allegations are nonsense. But even if Mr. Ballmer’s pending demurrer is sustained, the frivolous litigation has already exacted a reputational toll and has further linked Mr. Ballmer to Sanberg’s fraud in the eyes of the public. Moreover, Mr. Ballmer faces the threat of further litigation in the Aspiration bankruptcy proceedings that are rooted in the Torre and Karr allegations.These allegations also led to a lengthy investigation by the NBA that has impacted Mr. Ballmer’s reputation within the League. in the immediate wake of the allegations, Mr. Ballmer commissioned a comprehensive internal review of the Clippers organization, and directed his employees at the Clippers and his home office, the Ballmer Group, to participate in and cooperate with the League’s inquiries. As part of that review, we, as Mr. Ballmer’s attorneys, have contacted Sanberg’s attorneys to obtain any relevant information and insights Sanberg may have. But despite repeated requests, Sanberg has refused to share any meaningful information with us or Mr. Ballmer.Sanberg continues to exploit his fraud of Mr. Ballmer for his own benefit, providing information to the NBA in return for a sentencing letter that the league submitted on his behalf. The reliability of Sanberg’s information is suspect given that he has pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, and the Government has made its own determination that he is not credible. Clearly, Sanberg continues to prioritize his own interests over those of his victims in his desperate pursuit of a lighter sentence.ConclusionMr. Ballmer’s losses are not measured solely, or even primarily, on a balance sheet. They are measured in the reputational damage that will take years to remediate, and in the chilling effect on future endeavors intended to do good at scale. We ask the Court to impose a sentence that accounts for those harms, promotes respect for the law, and deters those who would seek to appropriate the reputations of others to advance fraudulent aims.
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