FTX Co-Founder Sam Bankman-Fried Agrees to Testify Before US Congress

The co-founder of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), has agreed to testify at one of the two congressional hearings set for next week. “I had thought of myself as a model CEO, who wouldn’t become lazy or disconnected,” Bankman-Fried claimed.

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has agreed to testify before the House Committee on Financial Services after the committee’s chair, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, politely tweeted inviting him to testify several times.

“I still do not have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there is a limit to what I will be able to say, and I won’t be as helpful as I’d like. But as the committee still thinks it would be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th,” Bankman-Fried tweeted to Rep. Waters Friday.

“I will try to be helpful during the hearing, and to shed what light I can on FTX US’s solvency and American customers, pathways that could return value to users internationally, what I think led to the crash, [and] my own failings,” he detailed in a follow-up tweet, elaborating:

I had thought of myself as a model CEO, who wouldn’t become lazy or disconnected, which made it that much more destructive when I did. I’m sorry. Hopefully people can learn from the difference between who I was and who I could have been.

Another congressional hearing is set for Wednesday, Dec. 14. U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), chair of the Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, sent a letter to Bankman-Fried last week requesting him to testify. At the time of writing, the former FTX CEO has not agreed to testify before the Senate committee.

FTX filed for bankruptcy on Nov. 11 and Bankman-Fried stepped down as the CEO. The company is now being investigated for various charges, including mishandling customer funds. FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, told the bankruptcy court: “Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here.”

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