FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange launched by
Sam Bankman-Fried,
said it fired three of the founder’s top deputies.
Gary Wang, an FTX co-founder and its chief technology officer; FTX engineering director Nishad Singh; and Caroline Ellison, who ran Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trading arm, Alameda Research, were terminated from those roles after FTX tapped
John J. Ray
to oversee the companies’ bankruptcy, an FTX spokeswoman said late Friday.
Mr. Bankman-Fried resigned on Nov. 11, when FTX filed for bankruptcy. He was replaced by Mr. Ray, a veteran restructuring executive who once oversaw the liquidation of Enron Corp.
FTX and Alameda sought protection from creditors after executives at both businesses revealed that FTX had lent billions of dollars worth of customer assets to Alameda to plug a funding gap, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. In a Thursday court filing, Mr. Ray highlighted numerous failings, including “the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals.”
On a Nov. 9 video call with Alameda employees, Ms. Ellison said that she, along with Messrs. Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh, were aware of the decision to send customer money to the trading firm, the Journal previously reported.
The four executives also comprised the board of what they called the Future Fund, a philanthropic arm charged with making grants to nonprofits and investments in “socially-impactful companies.”
Messrs. Bankman-Fried, Wang and Singh all owned stakes in at least some of the FTX companies, according to Mr. Ray’s court filing.
“Mr. Bankman-Fried ultimately agreed to resign, resulting in my appointment as the debtors’ CEO,” Mr. Ray wrote in the filing. “I was delegated all corporate powers and authority under applicable law, including the power to appoint independent directors and commence these Chapter 11 cases on an emergency basis.”
Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com and Hannah Miao at hannah.miao@wsj.com
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