Read the secret encrypted text messages that could help put Sam Bankman-Fried behind bars
Sam Bankman-Fried appears at federal court in New York on Oct. 4, 2023, in this courtroom sketch.
Artist: Claudia Johnson
Much of the government’s case against Sam Bankman-Fried hinges on the testimony and text messages from those in his crypto inner circle who turned against him late last year after the implosion of FTX and sister hedge fund Alameda Research.
Of the dozens of items entered into evidence in the first three weeks of the trial, a bank of messages on encrypted app Signal paint perhaps the clearest picture of Bankman-Fried’s alleged crimes.
Bankman-Fried faces seven criminal counts, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering that could land him in prison for life. Bankman-Fried, the son of two Stanford legal scholars, pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In trying to prove its case to a Manhattan jury, the government has presented a series of Signal exchanges involving Bankman-Fried, Caroline Ellison (his ex-girlfriend and the ex-CEO of Alameda Research), and former friends and top business execs Gary Wang, Nishad Singh and Ryan Salame. They date back to November 2021.
The messages gave jurors a rare look inside the casual conversations that culminated in a scheme described by U.S. Attorney Damian Williams as “one of the biggest financial frauds in American history.”
We’re quoting directly from the Signal messages that were entered as evidence, and not making spelling or other grammatical changes.
Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, center, arrives at court in New York, US, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images
‘Small group chat’
The Signal thread dubbed “small group chat” includes Ellison, Bankman-Fried, and Joe Bankman, the defendant’s father who advised the company on tax-related issues and other things. Also in the group were Ramnik Arora, a former product lead for FTX, Ryne Miller, who was the company’s general counsel, Constance Wang, ex-operating chief, as well as Salame, Singh, Wang and four others.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
The thread begins with two messages from Bankman-Fried posted at 3:47 a.m. on Nov. 7, 2022, the day FTX announced a liquidity crisis and began searching for cash to plug the gaping hole in its balance sheet.
At the time, Bankman-Fried pretended in public that all was well.
“FTX is fine. Assets are fine,” he wrote in a tweet that day. The post has since been deleted.
But as Bankman-Fried was tweeting reassurances and promising that customer funds were safe, executives were growing increasingly alarmed at the expanding shortfall, according to prosecutors.
In the “small group chat” thread, Bankman-Fried put forth some “potential todos,” including halting withdrawals, sending a “confident tweet thread” and reaching out to firms like Silverlake, Sequoia, and Apollo as they “wake up over the next few hours” to try and shore up cash.
Later that morning, at about 5:22 a.m., Salame linked to a tweet from an anonymous crypto trader saying, “cant wait for my FTX airdrop for not moving any of my funds.”
Bankman-Fried chimed in with different ideas about how to take advantage of the post in an apparent effort to provide false hope to FTX customers that they’d receive free tokens if they kept their funds on the platform.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
The next day, Nov. 8, Ellison appealed to the group for help on optics and public messaging.
She wrote, “multiple people internally asking me whether they should continue to make statements to external parties like ‘Alameda is solvent.’ should i suggest they stall instead? just stall on responding to their messages? or what?”
That’s the same day FTX issued a pause on all customer withdrawals. The price of FTT, FTX’s native token, plummeted by over 75%, and a high-tech bank run was in full force. Out of options, Bankman-Fried turned to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who announced he’d signed a non-binding letter of intent to acquire FTX.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
On Nov. 9, Ellison again looked to the group for guidance about how to handle the now infamous all-hands meeting of Alameda’s roughly 30 employees.
She proposed saying, “Alameda is probably going to wind down” and that there was “no pressure” to stay but help with “stuff like making sure our lenders get paid” would be “super appreciated.”
Bankman-Fried suggested she say something about there “being a future of some sort for those who are excited.”
Ellison ended up divulging a lot more than that in the staff meeting.
“Alameda borrowed a bunch of money,” which it used to make investments, Ellison said at the meeting, a secret recording of which was played by the prosecution. But as crypto prices fell, “FTX had a shortfall of user funds” and then “users started withdrawing their funds” and they “realized they would not be able to continue.”
When she was asked by a staffer whose idea it was to plug Alameda’s loan losses with FTX customer money, she said, “Um, Sam, I guess,” and giggled.
“FTX basically always allowed Alameda to, like, borrow user funds, as far as I know,” Ellison said on the recording.
Meanwhile, a day after signing the non-binding purchase agreement, Binance withdrew the offer, citing reports of “mishandled customer funds” and federal investigations.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
‘Lots of withdrawals’
Zhao, an early investor in FTX before becoming a principal rival, had made himself a central character in the FTX downfall days earlier.
On Nov. 6, he tweeted that because of “recent revelations that have came [sic] to light, we have decided to liquidate any remaining FTT on our books.”
In a group chat with Bankman-Fried, Ellison, and Singh starting that day, Singh wrote “lots of withdrawals on ftx are queueing up,” with net changes of $1.25 billion in the last day, $230 million in the last three hours, and $120 million in the last hour.
Ellison responded with a “:(” and Bankman-Fried with an “oof” after first mistakenly writing “of.”
The three continued to strategize. Singh suggested a few hours later that they reach out to Zhao privately and “ask for a truce” to “stem the bleed,” though he and Bankman-Fried both worried that Binance wouldn’t deescalate in public.
Ellison separately tried to figure out what to tell Salame about whether FTX could meet all withdrawals. Bankman-Fried suggested she write, “we can meet a ton, though it’s already getting large.”
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Later, Sam Trabucco, who had already departed as co-CEO of Alameda Research in August 2022, as well as Ellison, Ben Xie (Alameda’s head of trading), and Bankman-Fried, were in a group chat discussing how to respond to Zhao’s threat to liquidate his FTT tokens.
Ellison, who told jurors that she largely avoided social media, said she would tweet at CZ, a nickname for Zhao, that FTX would buy his entire stake at $22 per coin. Ellison also testified about the practice of using FTX customer funds funneled through Alameda to buy FTT to buoy the price during times of market volatility.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Bankman-Fried weighed in within minutes, writing, “I think the main point is just to counter the PR/narrative here — and Binance probably won’t take us up on it; I also think FWIW that the market is likely to buy more if we tweet it, but idk.” (FWIW is an acronym for for what it’s worth. IDK stands for I don’t know.)
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
The author’s visit
Author Michael Lewis, whose book profiling Bankman-Fried was published the day the trial began, was also the subject of some Signal exchanges.
In a chat on Jan. 5, 2022, Bankman-Fried alerted a group that included Ellison and Singh that Lewis would be coming to the Bahamas the next month to do reporting.
Ellison said her “instincts are more toward under the radar.” Bankman-Fried, a notorious press hound, responded, “same, except exactly the opposite.”
‘People of the House’
Adam Yedidia, one of the prosecution’s lead witnesses, met Bankman-Fried in college at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the pair remained close friends.
In his testimony, Yedidia referred to a Signal thread called “People of the House,” referring to Bankman-Fried’s $35 million penthouse, where many employees lived.
In terms of who was paying the rent, Yedidia recalled Bankman-Fried saying he “assumed it’s just alameda paying for it in the end.”
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
The subject of campaign donations was pivotal to Singh’s testimony. The former FTX engineering chief, who pleaded guilty to six charges in February, alleged that his former boss was behind much of the scheme to funnel money to political campaigns.
Singh testified that Bankman-Fried directed money held in accounts belonging to Alameda Research be used for political donations. That continued even after Bankman-Fried was apparently aware that his crypto hedge fund couldn’t pay back the $13 billion in FTX customer funds it had borrowed.
While Bankman-Fried doesn’t face chares for campaign violations in this trial, a superseding indictment alleged he used customer funds to make more than $100 million in campaign contributions for the 2022 midterm elections. The government has incorporated that accusation within two of the charges that are still standing: wire fraud and money laundering.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
‘Donation Processing’
Singh walked the jury through how the process worked.
He described a Signal chat dubbed “Donation Processing” that included Bankman-Fried and his brother, Gabe, Salame, and a political consultant named Michael Sadowsky, among others. Singh testified that Bankman-Fried or his brother would use this chat to request donations be made in Singh’s name. Salame, who had access to Singh’s bank account at Prime Trust Bank, would set up the transfer and then ping Singh in the channel to prompt him to go to his email and approve the wire request.
“My role was to click a button,” Singh said of the operation, adding that Salame had other ways to make the transfer from Singh’s funds that did not involve Singh having to do anything at all.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
In a separate Signal chat between Singh and Sadowsky, Singh wrote on Jul. 5, 2022, that he was “averse” to “explicitly-woke stuff” but added that it was “hard to interact productively with democrats without that.”
Sadowsky called Singh the “center left face of our spending,” meaning that he would be “giving to a lot of woke s—.”
So, “if you’re not comfortable about it, you should think about that a lot,” wrote Sadowsky.
Singh responded, “don’t love boxing myself into only associating with people i don’t like” and said he would look to see if there were “other viable people at FTX for it.”
In questioning witnesses, the government homed in on loans made to Wang and Singh in the range of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Direct messages between Singh and Bankman-Fried showed an attempt by the witness to be cleared of these debt obligations.
In a direct appeal to Bankman-Fried, Singh wrote on Nov. 6, 2022, “one thing that’d seriously help me is if I didn’t have debts.”
He wrote, “I think most of them are loans: 500m for me exercising, more for US investments. I hope we can unwind these but not sure.” He said he would return anything he had in his bank account, but there wasn’t much there.
I “(will think about this),” Bankman-Fried wrote.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
In the same thread, on Nov. 8, Singh wrote that Ryne Miller, FTX’s general counsel, seemed “super on edge” and “likely to resign” if they didn’t get it right.
Singh wrote, “this is wildly selfish of me, but they may need to know that it wasn’t a ton of people orchestrating it.” He added that, “it makes them more likely to want to be here to help save the situation and the others at least.”
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
As the grand scheme collapsed, Ellison expressed a great deal of relief in a private chat with Bankman-Fried.
Ellison wrote, “this is the best mood I’ve been in in like a year tbh.” (TBH is short for to be honest.)
In three consecutive messages, Bankman-Fried responded, “wow,” “uh,” “congrats?”
Ellison wrote, “I think I just had an increasing dread of this day that was weighing on me for a long time, and now that it’s actually happening, it just feels great to get it over with one way or another.”
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
T1 Energy (NYSE: TE), formerly FREYR Battery, kicks off preparations for its new solar cell factory, set to be one of the largest in the US.
T1 Energy has chosen Yates Construction as the contractor for preconstruction services and site preparations for its planned $850 million, G2_Austin 5 GW Solar Cell Facility.
The G2_Austin site is in Milam County, Texas, in the Advanced Manufacturing and Logistix Campus at Sandow Lakes.
It’s expected to create up to 1,800 new direct US advanced manufacturing jobs. Construction is on track to kick off in mid-2025, and the facility is expected to begin producing cells by the end of 2026. There are currently far fewer solar cell manufacturing sites in the US than solar module factories, according to the SEIA.
On December 24, FREYR announced that it had closed its acquisition of China-headquartered Trina Solar’s 5-gigawatt (GW), 1.35 million-square-foot solar panel factory in Wilmer, Texas. The company renamed the factory G1_Dallas, which employs more than 1,000 people and is now fully online.
Daniel Barcelo, T1’s chairman of the board and CEO, said, “Our facilities will manufacture solar cells and modules to invigorate our economy with abundant energy. We’re excited to work with Yates and Milam County to bring American advanced manufacturing to the heart of Texas and to unlock our most scalable energy resources.”
T1 Energy says it anticipates finalizing commercial terms with Yates Construction as General Contractor.
Read more: FREYR rebrands after killing its $2.6B Georgia battery factory plans
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![Kia's affordable EV2 may be small, but it looks bigger in person [Video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/05/Kia-EV2-closer-look.jpeg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
The EV2 is set to arrive as Kia’s smallest and most affordable electric vehicle next year. With its official debut coming up, the electric SUV was spotted driving on public roads. The electric SUV may be small, but it looks bigger in person.
Kia’s new EV2 is an affordable, small electric SUV
Kia has yet to say precisely how big the EV2 will be, but it’s expected to be around 4,000 mm (157″), or slightly smaller than the EV3 at 4,300 mm (169.3″). That’s even more compact than the outgoing Chevy Bolt EV (163.2″).
During its EV Day event in April, Kia unveiled the Concept EV2, a preview of the entry-level EV that will sit below the EV3.
Although it’s the brand’s smallest EV, Kia promises that it will feel larger when you’re inside. The EV2 sits higher than you’d expect with a wide front end, giving it a bigger presence on the road, similar to the three-row EV9.
We got a sneak peek at Kia’s affordable EV last month after it was spotted testing on public roads in Korea, but the latest sighting gives us a closer look at the EV2 in its production form. The new video from HealerTV reveals a few details that could look a little different from the concept.
The footage shows what appears to be different daytime running lights (DRLs). When Kia unveiled the Concept EV2 in April, it featured a unique split vertical headlight design.
The EV2 spotted driving still has the split design, but both the inner and outer lights appear to be angled more inwards. It’s not a huge difference, but given most of Kia’s new EVs look almost identical to the concepts, this could be something to keep an eye on.
Prices, specs, and more
Despite being an entry-level model, the EV2 is still equipped with advanced technology and features, including vehicle-to-load (V2L) capability, which allows it to power a campsite, home appliances, and other electronics. With OTA updates, it will only get smarter and more advanced over time.
The interior will feature Kia’s new ccNC (connected car Navigation Cockpit), which features dual 12.3″ driver cluster and touchscreen navigation screens in a panoramic display.
Like its other new EV models, it’s also expected to include a 5″ climate control display for nearly 30″ of screen space.
Kia plans to launch the EV2 next year in Europe and “other global regions.” For those in the US, sorry to disappoint, but it’s not expected to make the trip overseas. We do have the EV4, Kia’s first electric sedan, to look forward to.
We will learn prices and final specs closer to launch, but given it will sit below the EV3, it will likely be cheaper than that.
The EV3 starts at £32,995 ($44,800) in the UK and €35,990 ($41,600) in Europe. Kia’s CEO, Ho-Sung Song, told Autocar in 2023 that the company aims to launch the EV2 at around £25,000 ($32,000) in the UK. With new battery technology and other advancements, it could be even more affordable when it arrives next year.
Kia isn’t the only automaker gearing up to launch a new entry-level EV. Last week, we got a glimpse of the upcoming Volkswagen ID.2 after it was spotted in public testing.
Should Kia bring the EV2 to the US? Would you buy one for around $30,000 or even slightly less? Drop us a comment below and let us know.
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Environment
This electric pickup is taking Korea by storm, now it’s going global on a ‘full-scale conquest’
It’s not a Kia or Hyundai, but the Musso EV pickup truck is shaking up the Korean Market. After the first models left for Europe, the company’s CEO is already saying it will be a “driving force” as it goes on a global conquest.
Korea has a new EV pickup that’s going global
During an event celebrating the first exports of its new Musso EV and Torres HEV pickup trucks, KG Mobility’s CEO, Kwak Jae-Seon, said the new models “have already received favorable reviews and garnered much attention from reporters and sales agents.”
KG Mobility (KGM) expects them to serve as “a driving force” as it expands exports into new global markets. The first Ro-Ro (Roll-on/Roll-off) hit the seas on June 12 carrying 983 vehicles, 184 Musso EVs, and 799 Torres HEVs.
The vessel is headed for Europe, where the first models will be sold in Germany, Spain, Norway, Hungary, and other markets, starting in August.
Jae-Seon, who personally drove the Musso EV onto the car carrier, said during the event that pickup is now on a “full-scale conquest” as it rolls out globally.
KGM’s EV pickup has already generated quite the buzz in Korea, beating Hyundai and Kia to the first fully electric pickup truck.
After launching the Musso EV pickup in Korea in March, the company announced it had secured over 3,200 orders in two weeks. The Special Edition model sold out in an hour and a half.
KGM promotes the vehicles as “a new alternative to mid-size SUVs” that’s more useful as an everyday ride with more interior space.
Measuring 5,160 mm long, 1,920 mm wide, and 1,740 mm tall, the electric pickup is about the size of a Ford Ranger (5,225 mm long, 1,910 mm wide, and 1,866 mm tall).
The infotainment system looks a lot like new Hyundai and Kia EVs with a dual 12.3″ driver cluster and touchscreen navigation screens in a panoramic display.
It also comes with a Land Rover-like ClearSite Ground View camera, allowing you to see what’s beneath you through several strategically placed cameras.
The electric pickup is powered by an 86.6 kWh LFP battery, providing a range of nearly 250 miles (400 km). With up 200 kW fast charging, it can recharge to 80% in 24 minutes.
KGM’s Musso EV is available in both single (FWD) and dual-motor setups. The FWD version features a 152.2 kW front motor, producing up to 207 horsepower, while the AWD model boasts up to 413 horsepower. It can tow almost 4,000 lbs (1.8 tons) and includes a “trailer sway function” to stabilize the vehicle while towing.
The Musso EV pickup starts at 48 million won, or about $35,000. With incentives, KGM says the purchase price is closer to 39.62 million won ($29,000).
With more monthly exports in May than it has in 10 years, KGM expects the Musso EV pickup to accelerate the momentum.
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