Moskowitz Law Firm Founder and Managing Partner Adam Moskowitz discusses celebrities named in the lawsuit against FTX and the trial against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Much has been said about Sam Bankman-Fried’s easy-going, if not disheveled, demeanor as he built his FTX crypto empire and in the weeks following its implosion. It turns out there may have been a method to the madness.
“He dressed kind of sloppily and didn’t cut his hair often,” Caroline Ellison, Bankman-Fried’s former girlfriend and CEO of FTX’s sister company Alameda Research, said during Wednesday’s testimony in response to a question.
“He thought his hair was very valuable. He said since Jane Street.” [former trading firm employer]he thought he got higher bonuses because of his hair and that it was an important part of FTX’s narrative and image.
At the start of the trial last week, Bankman-Fried wore a cropped hood that had been tamed by his signature longer hairstyle, according to court sketches. He swapped his usual sweatshirt or t-shirt attire for a suit.
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FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried is facing a barrage of legal consequences over his involvement in FTX’s collapse. (Jeenah Moon/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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Bankman-Fried’s lawyers rejected questions about his hair, arguing to Judge Lewis A. Kaplan whether it had any real “evidentiary value.”
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A courtroom sketch shows Sam Bankman-Fried’s appearance in a Manhattan courtroom on Tuesday, October 10, 2023. (Jane Rosenberg/Fox News)
Bankman-Fried’s image and hair also caught the attention of Hillary Clinton in January 2022, according to author Michael Lewis, whose book “Going Infinite” chronicles Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall.
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On “Next Question with Katie Couric,” Lewis detailed his first meeting with Clinton at a party in Los Angeles that he attended with Bankman-Fried around the Super Bowl. Clinton asked, “What are you doing here?”
“This sounds strange, but here is someone I want to write a book about,” Lewis replied.
“The guy with the hair?” Clinton asked.
Sam Bankman-Fried, co-founder and CEO of FTX, in Hong Kong. (=Lam Yik/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Ellison also explained other ambitions of the disgraced CEO.
“He talked about how Alameda and eventually FTX should be successful and end up being huge companies that do a variety of things,” she said during her testimony on Tuesday. “He was also very interested in politics and talked about wanting to use his money to influence politics. He once said that he thought there was a 5% chance of him becoming president.”
Bankman-Fried is on trial for defrauding crypto investors of $1 billion, which has been compared to the collapse of energy giant Enron.
Compounding the pressure on the company was the decline in cryptocurrencies, which has been dubbed the “crypto winter.” During this time, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency by market value, fell from $31,000 to below $15,000 before returning to current levels.
Ellison, who agreed to a plea deal, testified that she and Bankman-Fried knowingly defrauded investors and manipulated financial statements, among other illegal tactics.