Caroline Ellison: SBF wanted to become US President and ask the Saudis for money

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Last Updated on 12 October 2023 by CryptoTips.eu

The lawsuit against FTX and Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) continues and becomes more and more interesting. In recent days it was the turn of Caroline Ellison, Sam’s ex and the former CEO of Alameda, to testify.

Her explanations were more colorful than we could have imagined. The American press is loving it, social media is full of it, and we’re giving you a short summary hereunder.

Advertentie.

President

When it came to his political donations, Ellison testified that Bankman-Fried “said he thought it was very effective . . . that he could get very high returns in terms of influence”, which is why FTX had contributed $10mn to Joe Biden’s presidential campaign.

Sam told her there was a “5 per cent chance he’d become president one day”, Ellison said. Asked by prosecutors what she had meant by president, Ellison said: “of the United States”.

Printing money

Caroline admitted that FTX and Alameda engaged in “creative accounting”, printing fictitious money (the FTT currency) and transferring customer funds from one balance sheet to another.

YouTube video

“Alameda took several billion dollars . . . from FTX customers,” Ellison said. She admitted to sending “balance sheets to [Alameda] lenders at the direction of Sam . . . that made Alameda’s balance sheet look less risky than it was”

Ellison said Alameda took several billion dollars from FTX customers and that Bankman-Fried had not only set up a system to steal the funds, but also directed Ellison and others to use customer funds to repay loans in the ballpark of $10 billion.

“We ultimately took around $14 billion, some of which we were able to pay back,” she said. “I sent balance sheets to lenders at the direction of Sam that incorrectly stated Alameda’s assets and liabilities.”

Take funds from customers

“He directed me to commit crimes,” Ellison told the jury. “He was the one who directed us to take customer money and repay our loans.” She previously pleaded guilty to fraud and agreed to co-operate with prosecutors.

Binance and Saudi Arabia

Alameda used about \$1 billion of FTX customer funds to buy back Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao’s investment in FTX, Ellison said yesterday. Sam Bankman-Fried had instructed her to do this because he felt that Binance’s investment in FTX could otherwise become ‘problematic.

Yesterday afternoon during testimony, Caroline revealed that SBF considered asking Saudi Arabia for funds when the price of FTT started to crumble (in October, November 2022). Given that Mohamed Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, was at that moment not very popular in the US, a controversial revelation.

Jeroen Kok

Jeroen is one of the lead copywriters on Cryptotips.eu and discusses all recent events in the crypto market. This includes news updates, but also price analyzes and more. He developed his passion for cryptocurrency during the bull run in 2017. He has learned a lot since then. The combination of cryptocurrency and creative writing is perfect for Jeroen and an excellent way to share his knowledge with a wide audience. Find me on LinkedIn / [email protected]
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