Sam Bankman-Fried, the former CEO and founder of failed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, flailed on “Good Morning America” when asked if he knew that funds were illegally transferred to his trading firm Alameda Research.
During a two-hour sitdown interview that aired on “Good Morning America” Thursday, George Stephanopoulos asked Bankman-Fried the question multiple times. When called out for dodging the question, he repeatedly licked his lips, muttered under his breath and looked up at the ceiling before saying, “I don’t know.”
Ultimately, Bankman-Fried answered that he was unaware “that there was any improper use of customer funds.”
On Nov. 11, Bankman-Fried stepped down from the company and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after revelations about Alameda’s large stores of FTT, the cryptocurrency issued by FTX, came to light. The disgraced CEO estimates that his net worth has fallen from $20 billion to just $100,000 as he faces court hearings and potential jail time.
“If Alameda’s borrowing the money that belongs to FTX depositors, that’s a bright red line isn’t it?” Stephanopoulos asked at one point, noting that this was explicitly prohibited by FTX’s terms of service.
“I was vaguely aware that that was how some wires were being sent in the first place,” Bankman-Fried deflected.
At various points in the interview, he expressed regret over not spending “any time or effort” on risk management for FTX.
“I should have been on top of this, and I feel really, really bad and regretful that I wasn’t, and a lot of people got hurt, and that’s on me,” he said.
“I think I got a little cocky,” he added. “I mean, more than a bit.”
Watch the full “Good Morning America” interview in the video above.
