​Ex-CEO of FTX to speak at conference alongside heads of US Treasury, Ukraine, and Meta

What’s new? On November 23, Sam Bankman-Fried, former CEO of the bankrupt crypto exchange FTX, confirmed his participation at the New York Times conference, which will be held on November 30. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will also attend. Bankman-Fried will be interviewed by NYT’s reporter Andrew Sorkin who stressed that many important questions need to be answered. The crypto community has reacted negatively to the upcoming interview. This will be Bankman-Fried’s first public appearance since FTX Group filed for bankruptcy.

A lot of folks have been asking if I would still be interviewing @SBF_FTX at the @nytimes @dealbook Summit on Nov 30…The answer is yes. 👇There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered. Nothing is off limits. Looking forward to it… https://t.co/lShAqXLKGS — Andrew Ross Sorkin (@andrewrsorkin) November 23, 2022

What is known about the appearance? A spokesman for the NYT told Bloomberg that Bankman-Fried will participate in the interview from the Bahamas. FTX is based in that island nation. Under Sorkin’s tweet about the upcoming conversation, users left more than 4000 comments.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, in a comment under the news of the upcoming interview, called the media articles about the former FTX CEO “one the biggest failures in US journalistic integrity of the 21st century.”

This is one the biggest failures in US journalistic integrity of the 21st century — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 24, 2022

Musk had previously called Bankman-Fried’s interview with the NYT a puff piece. The piece did not reveal details of handling client funds, and the journalist did not ask pointed questions. Many representatives of the crypto industry agreed with Musk, pointing to the complementarity of the material and even admitting that the newspaper’s informational support helps Bankman-Fried to avoid justice.

The crypto community is also perplexed as to why Bankman-Fried is planning to speak at the NYT event. Bitcoin TV co-founder Matt Odell accused the former FTX CEO of running a Ponzi scheme. He explained that Bankman-Fried created the FTT token, after which he sold a little of the asset to insiders and kept most of it for himself. The businessman traded FTT on his own exchange, took loans backed by it, and encouraged retail investors to buy the asset. In addition, Bankman-Fried used customer funds to support the price of the exchange token.

He created the FTT token. Sold some to insiders. Held the majority of it. Traded it on his own exchange. Took loans with it as collateral. Tweeted out often encouraging retail to buy it. Used customer funds to prop up the price.A clear ponzi scheme. — ODELL (@ODELL) November 23, 2022

Earlier, Bankman-Fried, in a letter to former colleagues, allowed the possibility of FTX to recover and explained the reasons for the company’s collapse. He said that the market crash, which began in the spring of 2022, reduced the exchange’s collateral from $60 billion to $9 billion, while liabilities rose to $8 billion.