NEW YORK — Fallen cryptocurrency magnate Sam Bankman-Fried will appear at The New York Times Summit this week, despite the high-profile collapse of his company FTX amid widespread allegations of fraud earlier this month.
Bankman-Fried is one of several prominent Jews who will speak at the Times DealBook Summit on Wednesday in New York City.
Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, US Secretary of the Treasury Janet Yellen and BlackRock CEO Larry Fink will all also address the summit. It appeared that Netanyahu and Zelensky would speak via video, and it was unclear whether Bankman-Fried would be present in person.
The special conference features talks from “groundbreakers” in the fields of business, technology and politics, the times said,
The purpose of the summit is to reveal the “hidden complexities, unexpected connections and cascading effects of change,” according to the event’s website.
Bankman-Fried is headlining the event. disputes arising Due to the surprising implosion of his company and allegations of unethical conduct against him. This will be his first public appearance since the collapse of the crypto empire.
in a sudden collapseBankman-Fried, who once had a personal fortune of nearly $23 billion, now faces legal threats, possible extradition and bankruptcy. His fortune has all but evaporated. FTX, the tiny Billion Dollar, went from being the world’s third largest cryptocurrency exchange to bankruptcy court within a week with a $32 billion valuation.
Bankman-Fried resigned from FTX, which she founded in 2019, earlier this month.
At the center of the mismanagement scandal are allegations that Bankman-Fried misappropriated billions of dollars in client funds to keep Alameda Research, another company she founded, afloat. Revelations about FTX’s tangled finances hit deposits earlier this month as concerned customers tried to pull billions of dollars out of the exchange, leaving the company starved of resources. Some investors lost large amounts of their own money.
Multiple reports allege that Bankman-Fried transferred approximately $10 billion in customer loans from FTX to Alameda Research.
The collapse of FTX has stunned the crypto industry, which was already reeling from the scandal.
Bankman-Fried, 30, was considered a financial wunderkind, were major donors Democratic Party and other causes, and created an image as a philanthropist. He was given positive media coverage prior to the scandal, including from the times,
Noting poor internal oversight and record-keeping, critics are drawing unflattering parallels between FTX’s implosion and Lehman Brothers and Enron Corp., as well as Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.
Bankman-Fried is now believed to be in the Bahamas, where FTX was based. He was booked to headline the event before his company went bust confirmed on wednesday That he will speak at the event with New York Times journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin.
“There are a lot of important questions to be asked and answered,” Sorkin said. “Nothing is off limits.”
A lot of people are asking if I’ll still be interviewing @SBF_FTX Feather @anytime @dealbook Summit on 30 November…
the answer is yes. ,
There are many important questions to be asked and answered.
Nothing is off limits.
looking forward to it… https://t.co/lShAqXLKGS
— Andrew Ross Sorkin (@andrewrsorkin) November 23, 2022
Tickets for the event, which required the submission of an application and are now sold out, cost $2,499. In addition to the main stage talks, the summit also includes networking events and a cocktail reception.
The major sponsor of the event is Accenture, a US-Irish business management company.
Other speakers at the conference include New York City Mayor Eric Adams, former US Vice President Mike Pence, actor Ben Affleck, CNN host Van Jones, TikTok CEO Shaw Chew, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy and Netflix founder Reed Hastings.
Agencies contributed to this report.
