Sam Bankman-Fried Will Speak at Conference Alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Despite Ongoing FTX Investigation

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried will speak during the New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit alongside Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky,  US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg despite the ongoing investigation against his failed venture FTX.

The full-day event, which will take place on November 30, will be hosted by Emmy Award-winning Andrew Ross Sorkin, the Times columnist and DealBook founder.

“The full-day event will feature a group of today’s top business and policy leaders on a single stage,” the announcement reads, which also lists SBF as a speaker. 

Other notable interviewees and speakers include Eric Adams, New York City Mayor, TikTok CEO Shou Chew, Amazon President and CEO Andy Jassy.

SBF also confirmed the news in a quote tweet suggesting that he will give more details about the FTX debacle during his talk at the summit. 

I’ll be speaking with @andrewrsorkin at the @dealbook summit next Wednesday (11/30). https://t.co/QocjPtCVvC

— SBF (@SBF_FTX) November 23, 2022

SBF Sends Apology Letter to Employees

In an apology letter sent by SBF, the former CEO of FTX blamed his “irrational decisions” on “sh—y” circumstances for the collapse of FTX – once the third-largest crypto exchange in the world.

“I lost track of the most important things in the commotion of company growth. I care deeply about you all, and you were my family, and I’m sorry,” SBF says, according to a copy of the letter shared by CNBC. 

In the letter, SBF once again claimed he was close to saving the crypto exchange. He said they received “potential interest in billions of dollars of funding” just eight minutes after he signed the Chapter 11 bankruptcy document. 

“Between those funds, the billions of dollars of collateral the company still held, and the interest we’d received from other parties, I think that we probably could have returned large value to customers and saved the business,” he added. 

Speculation around the health of FTX and Alameda increased in early November as reports revealed that the investment firm’s balance sheet was loaded with FTT tokens, the native token of FTX. On November 11, FTX announced that it had filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware, putting an end to the desperate attempt to raise funds.