Brett Harrison, former head of the U.S. arm of FTX, distanced himself from the crypto alternate co-founded by Sam Bankman-Fried, which filed for chapter again in November.
Harrison, who resigned as FTX US’s president in September, wrote about his expertise with the corporate in a 49-part Twitter thread printed Tuesday. Harrison had not often made any public feedback about FTX and had gone principally silent when the digital-asset firm flamed out this fall.
Harrison stated he wasn’t conscious of and didn’t take part within the FTX “prison scheme,” which he says was overseen by Bankman-Fried, former chief govt at FTX, together with the disgraced founder’s internal circle.
Bankman-Fried is charged with looting billions of {dollars} in buyer funds at FTX to help dangerous bets at affiliated hedge fund Alameda Analysis, in what prosecutors argue might be probably the most brazen fraud instances in recent times. He has pleaded not responsible on all eight counts he’s dealing with from the Southern District of New York and has been beneath home arrest in his mother and father’ California house on a $250 million bond.
Earlier than his arrest final month, Bankman-Fried had stated publicly that he by no means supposed to defraud anybody.
Harrison didn’t point out in his newest tweets whether or not he’s cooperating with any prosecutors or regulators.
Not like different executives at FTX, Harrison had conventional finance pedigree, having labored at various monetary outlets. He was as soon as the pinnacle of buying and selling methods expertise at Jane Avenue and led a tech workforce in an space targeted on exchange-traded funds at Citadel Securities.
Harrison stated he stepped down final 12 months from FTX.US, as his relationship with Bankman-Fried soured, after months of disputes over administration practices. Harrison stated he referred to as for a accountable hiring coverage, clear communication between Bankman-Fried and FTX US management and recruitment of extra skilled officers inside the platform’s govt ranks.
Harrison stated he wrote a proper criticism about FTX’s largest organizational issues in April 2022, however feared being fired.
“I raised issues on the firm believing that the administration and organizational points I noticed have been typical of rising start-ups, and that my position, as an skilled monetary companies govt, was to right them and unlock the subsequent stage of the corporate’s development,” Harrison wrote.
“I by no means might have guessed that underlying these sorts of points—which I’d seen at different extra mature corporations in my profession and believed to not be deadly to enterprise success—was multi-billion-dollar fraud,” Harrison wrote.
In response to Harrison, he acquired to know Bankman-Fried once they each labored for Jane Avenue, and had an impression of the latter as a “conscientious junior dealer” and a “a delicate and intellectually curious one who cared about animals.” Nonetheless, Harrison stated he noticed within the early battle at FTX with Bankman-Fried “his whole insecurity and intransigence when his choices have been questioned, his spitefulness, and the volatility of his temperament.”
“I spotted he wasn’t who I remembered,” Harrison wrote.
Prosecutors make the case that FTX was a fraud from the very starting, with Bankman-Fried allegedly funneling buyer deposits into Alameda. Bankman-Fried handled the cash as his private piggy financial institution, prosecutors have stated, utilizing it additionally to finance a lavish way of life for him and a coterie of associates and executives.
Bankman-Fried didn’t reply to a request looking for remark for this text.
In a remark to Bloomberg about Harrison’s statements through Twitter, Bankman-Fried is quoted as saying that “Brett was an ideal developer and deeply understood FTX’s product.”
“Whereas I strongly disagree with a lot of what he stated, I’ve no want to get right into a public argument with him, nor do I really feel prefer it’s my place to litigate his job efficiency in public, until he have been to authorize me to take action,” Bankman-Fried was quoted saying to Bloomberg.