The New York Times has confirmed that disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will appear for a talk gig next week, sparking widespread outrage.
The 30-year-old, who is under investigation by authorities in the United States and the Bahamas over the sudden collapse of his $32 billion cryptocurrency empire, had previously been on the line-up for the Dealbook Summit on Wednesday 30 of November
Other speakers scheduled at the event, which “brings together today’s most vital minds,” include the likes of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, Blackrock CEO Larry Fink, and the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg.
After FTX’s spectacular implosion earlier this month, and the disappearance of billions of dollars in client funds, Dealbook moderator Andrew Ross Sorkin said that “a lot of people had been asking” whether I would interview “SBF”.
“The answer is yes,” Sorkin wrote on Twitter Wednesday, confirming an earlier tweet by Mr. Bankman-Fried about the upcoming appearance. “There are many important questions to be asked and answered. Nothing is off limits. Wishing it would come.”
Social media users reacted with disbelief at the news.
“If I were Andrew Sorkin, the first question I’d ask SBF is, ‘How come you’re not in jail right now?'” he said. hidden forces podcast host Demetri Kofinas.
TechDirt Editor Mike Masnick said, “I almost feel bad for this man’s lawyers. Anyway, I assure you the DOJ will be there taking very careful notes.”
One Twitter user claimed the “rule of law” in the US was dead.
“In 2008, Bernie Madoff was arrested within 24 hours of his fraud being revealed. In 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried will attend the NY Times Dealbook Summit after his fraud was revealed,” wrote another.
Despite the outrage, several users suggested genuine questions they’d like answered.
“Instead of talking about leverage and how it was all a little accident, I’d be very curious as to what made you think it was okay to use clients’ funds without their knowledge,” said one.
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Another added: “Would be good to hear… when/how did you decide to take customer funds and use them as collateral for loans – that’s the key issue much more than the margin issues and it’s being removed – more about the political donation process and what these closed-door conversations look like.”
The New York Times Last week he had previously been criticized for publishing a lengthy interview with Mr. Bankman-Fried that many described as a “puff piece.”
On Wednesday, the newspaper published another story about the businessman who spent hundreds of millions of dollars in political donations and charitable contributions over the past three years.
“A network of political action committees, nonprofits and consulting firms funded by FTX or its executives worked to prosecute politicians, regulators and others in the political orbit, with the goal of making Mr. Bankman-Fried is the authoritative voice of crypto, while shaping regulation for the industry and other causes,” the article said.
“Politicians, advocacy groups and fundraisers are now distancing themselves. Some lawmakers are dumping campaign contributions from Mr. Bankman-Fried and his allies donating to charities in the same amounts they received. Lawmakers are asking for hearings.”
Reacting to the article, citizen journalism crypto account Autism Capital wrote: “Damage control is in overdrive. Can’t we be the only ones noticing this? This is outrageous.”
“I’m so sorry”
It comes after Mr Bankman-Fried told former employees in a letter that he was “deeply sorry” for the implosion of his cryptocurrency exchange, but continued to point the finger at the company’s bankruptcy filing, insisting it could to have saved the platform if he was given enough. time
“I am very sorry for what happened. I am sorry for what happened to all of you,” Mr Bankman-Fried, who is said to have bought hundreds of millions of dollars in expensive real estate in the Bahamas, although it claimed to advocate “effective altruism”.
“I didn’t want any of this to happen, and I would give anything to go back and do it all over again. You were my family. I’ve lost it and our old house is an empty warehouse of monitors. When I turn around, there’s no one left to talk to.”
The letter was posted on FTX’s internal Slack channel by a staff member. Mr. Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO and is no longer an employee of the Company.
Attorneys for FTX told a Delaware bankruptcy judge on Tuesday that “a substantial amount of assets have been stolen or have disappeared.”
FTX filed for protection in the US after traders withdrew $6 billion ($8.9 billion) from the platform in three days and rival exchange Binance abandoned a rescue deal. The collapse has left a million creditors facing losses totaling billions of dollars.
During the bankruptcy hearing this week, an attorney for FTX told the court that the company was run by Mr. Bankman-Fried as his own “personal feud”.
New FTX CEO John Ray, who took over when the company filed for bankruptcy, also accused Bankman-Fried of working with Bahamian regulators to “undermine” the US bankruptcy case and move the assets abroad.
The FTX founder did not address allegations that client funds were used by sister company Alameda Research, run by his ex-girlfriend Caroline Ellison, to make risky bets.
In his letter, Mr. Bankman-Fried continued to insist that he had a way out of the disaster, writing to his employees: “The potential interest in billions of dollars in financing came approximately eight minutes after I signed the documents of the Chapter 11. Between those funds, the billions of dollars in collateral the company still had, and the interest we had received from other parties, I think we probably could have returned a lot of value to customers and saved the business. I think there are billions of dollars of genuine interest from new investors that could go towards making customers whole.”
Bankman-Fried wrote in the letter that the fall in the value of cryptocurrencies cut FTX’s collateral in half to about $US30 billion ($44.5 billion). The company’s liabilities were valued at $2 billion ($3 billion).
When cryptocurrencies failed to recover, collateral fell further to $9 billion ($13 billion), according to Bankman-Fried, who lamented the “correction to the bank” as account holders tried to withdraw their deposits
“I did not realize the full extent of the margin position, nor did I realize the magnitude of the risk posed by a hypercorrelated shock,” Bankman-Fried wrote.
He claimed the chain of events led FTX to file for bankruptcy protection.
— with NY Post