Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO of FTX, has expressed sincere regret for last week’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, calling it his “worst single fuckup.”
In a lengthy interview with VOX that was released on Nov. 16 and covered a wide range of subjects, Bankman-Fried reportedly provided comments on the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on Nov. 11, his views on regulators, ethics, how FTX and Alameda “gambled with consumer money,” and the FTX breach.
According to images of a chat between Sam Bankman-Fried and VOX reporter Kelsey Piper on Twitter, the former CEO of FTX claimed that while he had made a number of errors, the largest one was following advice and declaring Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
“I f*cked up big multiple times,” Bankman-Fried wrote. “you know what was maybe my biggest single f*ckup?” “The one thing *everyone* told me to do […] chapter 11.”
Bankman-Fried said that if he hadn’t filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy, “everything would be ~70% fixed right now,” and “withdrawals would be opening up in a month with customers fully whole,” adding:
“But instead I filed, and the people in charge of it are trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame”
Bankman-Fried reportedly requested $8 billion in emergency finance from investors after acknowledging a “liquidity shortage” on November 8 and even offered his own fortune to “make customers and investors right.”
Bankman-Fried said that he still had two weeks to obtain the $8 billion, which is “essentially all that counts for the rest of my life,” in response to the question of what was next for him.
However, Bankman-Fried “has no ongoing function at [FTX], FTX US, or Alameda Research Ltd. and does not speak on their behalf,” according to a statement released by FTX CEO and chief restructuring officer John Ray on November 16.
Turning to other topics discussed during the interview, Bankman-Fried said that his push for regulations was “just PR,” before adding:
“Fuck regulators, they make everything worse, they don’t protect customers at all”
Hours later, Bankman-Fried appeared to have walked those sentiments back, noting in a Nov. 16 tweet that:
“It’s really hard to be a regulator. They have an impossible job: to regulate entire industries that grow faster than their mandate allows them to.”
29) Which means that interacting with regulatory structures can be really frustrating: a *huge* amount of work–much of it arbitrary–and relatively little customer protection.
Fuck that. You all deserve frameworks that let regulators protect customers while allowing freedom.
— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 16, 2022
Bankman-Fried said it was “either an ex-employee, or malware on an ex-computer,” employee’s and that the money being taken out of FTX was really being stolen.
In a since-deleted tweet, the former CEO stuck by his assertion that FTX has never invested client assets, saying it “was factually accurate” because Alameda was the organization handling the investments.
Sam Bankman-Fried was contacted by Cointelegraph for more insight but had not responded as of the time of publication.
