Watch Ex-FTX Chief Sam Bankman-Fried Give First Live Interview Since Bankruptcy – CNET

At 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT Wednesday, the internet will turn its attention to The New York Times DealBook Summit, where the founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, has promised to sit for a live interview.

black and white head shot of Sam Bankman-Fried

Sam Bankman-Fried

FTX.us

He confirmed his plans to speak at the New York City event last week, during which DealBook founder Andrew Ross Sorkin said “nothing is off limits.” There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered,” Sorkin wrote in a tweet confirming the interview last week.

Bankman-Fried had been scheduled to speak at the conference despite the dramatic implosion of FTX, which had been the world’s second-largest cryptocurrency exchange until it declared bankruptcy earlier this month. Since then, Bankman-Fried and his team have been accused of mismanaging billions of dollars of customer funds

The new CEO of FTX, John J. Ray III, called the situation a failure unlike any he’s seen. And considering he helped manage the fallout from Enron, one of the most infamous financial collapses in the last several decades, that’s saying something. “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,” he wrote in a November court filing.

The FTX founder, who was also a prolific political donor, is also scheduled to testify in front of the US House of Representatives Financial Services Committee in December about the collapse of FTX and its bankruptcy filing. 

Bankman-Fried is set to speak at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT Wednesday. 

Where

The New York Times is offering a livestream of the NYC event on its DealBook website. CNET will cover Bankman-Fried’s comments as they happen.

What we can expect

Bankman-Fried has given a couple interviews since FTX’s collapse, acknowledging to Vox that he “fucked up. Big. Multiple times.” Now that he’s no longer FTX’s CEO and has come under scrutiny for possible fraud, it will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

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