While the former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has done numerous interviews, during these discussions he’s explained on numerous occasions that as far as Alameda Research is concerned, he “wasn’t running Alameda.” SBF wasn’t the CEO of the trading firm Alameda Research as the job was handled by Caroline Ellison, a former Jane Street trader and Stanford graduate. Ellison has been super silent since FTX’s collapse and there’s been speculation that she fled Hong Kong to reside in Dubai.
Where in the World Is Alameda’s CEO Caroline Ellison?
During Sam Bankman-Fried’s (SBF) interviews he noted on several occasions that he did not run Alameda Research, the quantitative cryptocurrency trading firm and market maker that provided liquidity in cryptocurrency markets. During his Dealbook Summit interview, SBF stated “I wasn’t running Alameda,” and he further stressed he “didn’t know the size of their position.”
SBF is getting flood-the-zone coverage, but shouldn’t we be hearing a lot more about Caroline Ellison?
And Sam Trabucco, while we’re at it?
— Kevin Drum (@kdrum) November 24, 2022
“I didn’t know exactly what was going on,” SBF told the audience watching the Dealbook Summit interview. On paper, it shows that SBF founded Alameda Research, but he claimed on several occasions that it was a completely different entity than FTX, despite the arguments that dispute his claims. Data shows that at one point Alameda had two CEOs — Sam Trabucco and Caroline Ellison. The cryptocurrency community assumes that if SBF didn’t know what was going on behind the scenes at Alameda, Trabucco and Ellison must have answers.
nothing like regular amphetamine use to make you appreciate how dumb a lot of normal, non-medicated human experience is
— Caroline (@carolinecapital) April 5, 2021
Trabucco, however, announced on Aug. 24, 2022, that he was leaving Alameda and he has not been speaking since the whole incident went haywire. The former co-CEO did write a cryptic tweet on Nov. 8, 2022, after the FTX’s calamity started. “Much love to everyone — I’m sure the past few days have been dark for many and I hope the road ahead is brighter,” Trabucco said. Since Trabucco left less than three months prior to FTX’s collapse, Ellison was the CEO left in charge.
No one has heard from Ellison, the daughter of two MIT economists. However, she did tweet about Alameda’s balance sheet after the report Coindesk’s Ian Allison published on Nov. 2, 2022. “A few notes on the balance sheet info that has been circulating recently: – that specific balance sheet is for a subset of our corporate entities, we have [more than] $10B of assets that aren’t reflected there,” Ellison wrote. “The balance sheet breaks out a few of our biggest long positions; we obviously have hedges that aren’t listed. Given the tightening in the crypto credit space this year we’ve returned most of our loans by now,” Ellison added.
Like Trabucco, Ellison has not said a peep after her last tweets and no one has heard from her since. While SBF is not taking responsibility for Alameda because he “wasn’t running Alameda” and didn’t realize the positions it held, it still leaves someone responsible. Kim Dotcom highlighted this fact during SBF’s candid interview on Twitter Spaces when he asked how could people trust SBF after he “threw his lover under the bus.” SBF was very annoyed by this question, and he told Dotcom that he thought it was “f***ed up.” But in all reality, if SBF didn’t know what was going on at Alameda, then it is quite obvious who did.
Ellison has been covered by the media on several occasions, but the reports are only gathering public info from the web. Further, the reports have been condemned as puff pieces written by the establishment. The Alameda CEO has not spoken candidly with the New York Times, Good Morning America, or exclusive interviews with New York Magazine and Bloomberg. While she was the CEO of Alameda, no one’s asked SBF where she is right now, and what she is doing about the entire FTX/Alameda fiasco. Ellison reportedly left Hong Kong and fled to Dubai, but reports are unconfirmed. Specific Gulf countries like the United Arab Emirates do not have extradition treaties with the United States.
What do you think about SBF saying he didn’t run Alameda and Caroline Ellison’s silence on the subject? Let us know what you think about this subject in the comments section below.
