Will Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried Speak at This Event?

In Brief

• Sam Bankman-Fried is still listed to speak at this year's New York Times DealBook Summit, despite being axed as FTX CEO.
• The crypto community has decried recent articles by the New York Times as exonerating SBF and glossing over the real losses experienced by FTX customers.
• SBF has been accused by FTX lawyers of joining in impeding efforts to bring the FTX bankruptcy case under one court.

Embattled former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) is still listed as a keynote speaker at the New York Times’ 2022 DealBook Summit that is set to take place on Nov. 30, 2022, despite having no role in the company.

This comes after a New York Times published a piece that some crypto community members believed downplayed the seriousness of the exchange’s collapse, prompting speculation that SBF had connections within the Times.

Sam Bankman-Fried to join political heavyweights
The event, hosted at the Lincoln Center in New York City, will also welcome New York City Mayor Eric Adams, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink, former Prime Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

CNBC Squawk Box anchor and Times writer Andrew Ross Sorkin will interview all the speakers on a single stage.

The DealBook Summit has historically looked to blend business, culture, and political themes. It has hosted past speakers like Apple CEO Tim Cook, former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, anti-crypto senator Elizabeth Warren, and bitcoin-bashing JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

New York Times accused of bias, helping SBF
The crypto community, including famed influencer BitBoy, has decried the inclusion of SBF in the event. They have accused the former CEO and the Times of trying to repair his public image.

Another piece by the New York Times describing the interview of a psychiatrist who served as an in-house professional coach to FTX employees has been accused of damage control by downplaying troubling aspects of SBF and FTX’s corporate culture.

In the article, the psychiatrist denies rumors that FTX employees used a prescription medication to enhance job performance and that employees took part in non-monogamous relationships.

This is despite the fact another NYT writer David Yaffe-Bellamy commented on the company’s crypto-themed condoms upon visiting the company’s headquarters in May 2022.

Sam Bankman-Fried implicated in corporate governance shamble
In an official FTX Twitter thread on Nov. 17, 2022, FTX’s new CEO, John Ray, revealed that SBF had resigned from FTX, Alameda Research, and all its subsidiaries. Hence, he plays no role in the future of these companies.

Furthermore, Ray said he had never seen a worse failure of corporate governance.

“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,” said Ray on Nov. 17, 2022.

Additionally, FTX’s bankruptcy lawyers have accused the former CEO of trying to interrupt the transfer of a competing bankruptcy case from New York to Delaware.

In a court filing, the lawyers suggested SBF supported Bahamian authorities, who filed a case in New York over the insolvency of FTX Digital Markets in the Bahamas earlier this week.

The authorities believe that assets held in FTX custodial wallets are owed to FTX Digital Markets. They want to bring the assets under Bahamian control. FTX lawyers say this move could hamper the progress of the company’s Chapter 11 proceedings. It also prevents the consolidation of insolvency issues in a single court.

They allege that SBF’s recent tweets, where he suggested he could turn back the clock on his decision to file for bankruptcy if “we can win a jurisdictional battle vs. Delaware,” are sabotaging the bankruptcy process.
Vox Media first unveiled the tweets.

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