NEW YORK – In the weeks since crypto exchange FTX collapsed, questions have swirled about everything – from the risk management practices at Mr Sam Bankman-Fried’s companies to which firm might be the next domino to fall.
A smaller, perhaps more niche, subsection of crypto Twitter has also wondered: Will Mr Bankman-Fried honour his scheduled appearance at The New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit? It would be the former FTX chief executive’s first public appearance – cryptic Twitter threads notwithstanding – since he sought bankruptcy protection for his fallen crypto empire.
True to form, Mr Bankman-Fried on Wednesday tweeted that he would, in fact, be speaking to the Times’ Andrew Ross Sorkin at the summit in New York next week. Mr Sorkin, a financial columnist at the newspaper, retweeted the post before adding additional commentary.
A spokesman for the Times said it currently expects Mr Bankman-Fried to participate in the interview from the Bahamas, where FTX was based.
“There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered,” Mr Sorkin wrote in a tweet of his own. “Nothing is off limits.”
As FTX and related entities unravelled in November and Mr Bankman-Fried resigned as CEO, his public persona has been relatively muted. Instead of frequent television appearances, he has opted for long Twitter threads and exchanging direct messages on the platform with reporters.
This social media presence has brought trouble. Lawyers for FTX said in court documents that Mr Bankman-Fried’s “incessant and disruptive tweeting” was undermining their restructuring efforts. Law firm Paul Weiss said it had stopped representing Mr Bankman-Fried due to “conflicts”.
FTX’s sprawling operations were raising questions even before billions of dollars in financial ties between the exchange operator and Mr Bankman-Fried’s Alameda Research investment arm alarmed investors and undid his empire.
Prosecutors and regulators, including the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and Commodity Futures Trading Commission, are now seeking help from new FTX CEO John Ray III. He took over as part of its bankruptcy proceedings and is navigating what he described as “a complete absence of trustworthy financial information”. BLOOMBERG
