Today, FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried said he will testify before Congress next week. After back and forth on Twitter with the committee chair, Representative Maxine Waters, he agreed to testify about the sudden collapse of the crypto exchange. “I still don’t have access to much of my data — professional or personal. So there’s a limit to what I can say and I won’t be as helpful as I would like,” he said tweeted this morning. “But since the committee still thinks it will be useful, I am willing to testify on the 13th.” The House Committee on Financial Services will hold a hearing Tuesday to investigate FTX.
His agreement to testify is a change from last week when he tweeted that he would only appear after completing his “research and review” of what led to the company’s rapid demise. company. Waters responded: “Based on your CEO role and your media interviews over the past few weeks, it’s clear to us that the information you have so far is sufficient as evidence. .”
His testimony to the House Committee will likely take place remotely, according to The Wall Street Journal. Leaders of the Senate Banking Committee, which is holding a separate FTX hearing next week, have threatened to subpoena him if he also does not agree to appear before their panel. But that can be hard to enforce because he lives in the Bahamas.
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His testimony could include a public confrontation with John J. Ray III, the current CEO of FTX that oversees bankruptcy proceedings, who is also testifying on Tuesday. Ray has spared no words about Bankman-Fried’s “erratic and misleading public statements” about FTX. “Never in my career have I witnessed such a complete failure to control a business and the complete absence of reliable financial information as has happened here.”
Bankman-Fried resigned last month after Binance pulled out of an agreement to buy FTX, citing concerns discovered while conducting due diligence. FTX subsequently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, preventing the collapse. The company is currently facing more than 100,000 creditorsbut that number could grow to more than a million.
Hollywood, an industry that has never denied a well-known decline story, was quick to jump in. Amazon already has green light for a limited series about FTX led by the Russo brothers.
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