On Nov. 29, 2022, the crypto supporter and reporter, Tiffany Fong, published an interview with the former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) that was recorded 13 days before the interview was released. During the interview, SBF discussed who he thinks may have hacked FTX and he further denied he had a backdoor installed to funnel funds between FTX and Alameda Research. “I don’t even know how to code,” SBF stressed to Fong during the conversation. Additionally, the New York Times claims to have obtained a slew of emails and text messages between FTX’s legal counsel, other top executives, and SBF while the exchange was in the midst of collapse.
SBF claims backdoor allegations ‘definitely not true,’ possibly a ‘poorly labeled accounting thing’
Roughly two weeks ago, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), co-founder and former CEO of FTX, decided to do a phone interview. Tiffany Fong, Telephone Interview (Here And Here) was revealed a few days before Fong published it, and the discussion with SBF was published on Youtube on Tuesday, November 29, 2022.
“You don’t get into the situation we got in, if you make all the right decisions,” SBF said during his chat. “If I’d been more careful … there’s a billion things I could have done.” In the interview, Fong talked about the alleged “backdoor” that was mentioned in a Reuters article that said, “executives set up a book-keeping backdoor.”
SBF, speaking with Phong, denied the “backdoor” claims, and he insisted that he “never actually opened the codebase for any FTX.” “That’s definitely not true… I don’t even know how to code,” commented the former FTX CEO. The SBF said it did not know exactly what the Reuters article was referring to when it published a story about the backdoor. The SBF noted, however, that this may be a “poorly labeled accounting thing”, when they said:
I was wrong … I was incorrect on Alameda’s balances on FTX by a fairly large number, an embarrassingly large one.
SBF discusses ‘dark’ donations to Republicans to please ‘super-liberal’ media, FTX co-founder touches on FTX wallet ‘hack’
During the interview with Fong, SBF touched on campaign finance in the US and addressed how high-ranking FTX executives donated millions of US dollars to America’s bipartisan system of politicians. While its widely known SBF donated to the Democratic Party, the co-founder of FTX said that he donated to Republicans in the dark to please the liberal media. Bankman-Fried said, “I donated an equal amount to both sides.”
“All my Republican donations were dark,” SBF told Fong during the telephone conversation. “The reason was not for regulatory reasons. It’s because reporters freak the f*** out if you donate to Republicans, they’re all super-liberal, and I didn’t want to have that fight.”
SBF also told Fong that the theories surrounding FTX and Ukraine were false, but said he wanted him to be “part of an international conspiracy that is interesting.” Bankman-Fried also talked about the hacker who extorted FTX’s wallet on the same day the firm filed for bankruptcy protection.
The FTX co-founder believes he “narrowed it down to like eight people — I don’t know which one it was.” SBF also told Fong that he was able to acquire capital in the sum of $4 billion from an unspecified fund “eight minutes” after his exchange filed for bankruptcy protection. Furthermore, despite the red flags surrounding FTX’s FTT token and how it was held by very few wallets (and still is), SBF wholeheartedly believed FTT was better than a lot of other tokens.
“I feel [FTT token] “Basically there was more legitimate than a lot of tokens,” SBF explained during its interview with Phong. “It was more economical than the average token,” he said.
Report Claims SBF ‘Ignored’ Warnings and ‘Clung to Power’ Waiting Until the Last Minute to Relinquish Control of FTX
On the same day, Fong released her interview with SBF, New York Times (NYT) reporter David Yaffe-Bellany published an article featuring quotes from “dozens of pages of emails and private messages” obtained by the publication. The report said during the time FTX was collapsing reportedly there was “no cooperation” with SBF, as far as giving up control of the exchange.
The NYT report claims documents show that FTX’s legal counsel and other top executives wanted SBF to immediately give up authority and prepare for bankruptcy proceedings. ,[SBF] ignored their warnings and clung to power, seemingly able to save the firm, despite mounting evidence to the contrary,” the report details.
FTX’s lead legal counsel member Ryne Miller, a former U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) employee for over three years, insisted “the exchanges must be halted immediately.” The email to FTX staff on Nov. 10 stressed: “The founding team is not currently in a cooperative posture.” That same day, the NYT report says SBF told the FTX staff that he was trying to raise capital but in a text message to top executives, Miller remarked the fundraising chances had a “0% likelihood.”
Another message reviewed by the NYT reveals that FTX chief operating officer, Constance Wang, told employees “I don’t want to stop trying just yet” when things were looking pretty bleak for the crypto exchange.
According to Yaffe-Bellany’s report, in a group chat with a number of FTX employees, Alameda Research’s CEO Caroline Ellison said she was “kinda worried that everyone is gonna quit/take time off.” Yaffe-Bellany’s report says that in private messages FTX officials “pressed the case with Mr. Bankman-Fried’s father,” the Stanford Law professor Joe Bankman.
Between a talk with his father and an alleged fundraising discussion with Tron founder Justin Sun, SBF eventually relinquished control to John Jay Ray III. Ray is the new CEO of FTX and is overseeing the bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings. Five days after the interview with Tiffany Fong he gave up control of the company and FTX filed for bankruptcy protection.
After the interview, Fong noted that “SBF expresses remorse in this interview” and in another statement, she said she was “not expecting to have an impromptu phone call [with] Sam Bankman-Fried.” The former FTX CEO is also scheduled to speak with Andrew Ross Sorkin at the annual New York Times Dealbook Summit on Nov. 30.
Alameda CEO Carolyn Ellison Allegedly fled Hong Kong to Dubai, but the reports have not been confirmed. The whereabouts of FTX co-founder Gary Wang is currently unknown at the time of writing, and both Wang and Ellison have yet to speak to the press.
