Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Over the past month, lawyers in the criminal trial of Sam Bankman-Fried have brought close to 20 witnesses to the stand and presented hundreds of exhibits to the 12 jurors who will decide the fate of the boy once deemed the king of crypto.
The jury, which began deliberations on Thursday afternoon, has a mountain of evidence to consider in determining whether the 31-year-old founder of FTX is guilty of seven criminal counts, which include wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering. Bankman-Fried, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges, faces more than 100 years in prison if convicted.
While prosecutors were able to present the jury with testimony from members of the defendant’s inner circle, Bankman-Fried’s case rests largely on his own appearance on the witness stand.
“From beginning to end, Sam Bankman-Fried’s team failed to come up with a real game changer,” said Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Section and now a trial partner in Chicago with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner. “His fraud was brazen and difficult to explain away, and he lacked the discipline to keep his mouth shut even after it was apparent that he was under criminal investigation.”
In addition to oral testimony, the government brought in other evidence to try and prove its case and to paint a picture of an executive who got too much, too fast, and spent well in excess of his means. These exhibits include encrypted text messages, emails, promissory notes, Google docs, spreadsheets, leaked videos and photos displaying Bankman-Fried’s lavish lifestyle, including of his $35 million condo in the Bahamas.
Lawyers for the U.S. Attorney’s office entered into evidence a series of photos featuring the $35 million penthouse where Sam Bankman-Fried and his fellow co-workers resided.
Source: SDNY
$1.1 billion in promissory notes
For weeks, prosecutors have shown the jury how billions of dollars in FTX customer money went to political donations, venture investments and luxury real estate. They traced the hundreds of millions of dollars that went from company coffers to Bankman-Fried’s personal accounts.
The prosecution presented a series of relatively simple, two-page promissory notes. According to agreements signed by the defendant and Caroline Ellison, who ran hedge fund Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried borrowed more $1.1 billion in the year before his companies — FTX and Alameda — filed for bankruptcy.
Bankman-Fried admitted on the stand that there were likely more loans that weren’t properly documented, so the borrowing probably exceeded what was presented into evidence.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Secret emails
Much of the government’s case against Bankman-Fried hinges on the testimony, emails, and text messages from former top lieutenants who turned against him late last year.
In one email, shared by prosecutors, Bankman-Fried promised preferential treatment to Bahamian customers on the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.
In a message to Ryan Pinder, the attorney general and minister of legal affairs for the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried claimed FTX had “segregated funds for all Bahamian customers” and would be “more than happy to open up withdrawals for all Bahamian customers on FTX, so that they can, tomorrow, fully withdraw all of their assets, making them fully whole.”
The email was sent Nov. 9, one day after FTX had halted withdrawals and two days before it filed for bankruptcy. FTX users had collectively pulled $5 billion off the platform in what amounted to a bank run.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Two other separate email chains show that Bankman-Fried seriously mischaracterized his role at Alameda Research, according to prosecutors.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
In a message to Rob Creamer, the CEO of Geneva Trading and chairman of FIA Principal Traders Group, Bankman-Fried wrote “Alameda has a totally separate team” that he didn’t manage.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Bankman-Fried wrote in an email to a Wall Street Journal reporter that Alameda’s account access “is the same as others” and that its traders don’t have “any special access to client information, marketdata, or trading.” According to the government, those claims have been debunked through witness testimony and internal company documents and text messages.
Alameda’s preferential treatment is spelled out in the two exhibits listed below. They show Alameda’s “allow negative” feature, and a line of credit on FTX that was $65 billion compared to $150 million or less for all other customers on the exchange.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Google Docs
Executives at FTX and Alameda used Google Docs and Sheets to share important financial information, according to their testimony.
Ellison would send alternative versions of balance sheets, some omitting key financials like the amount of customer funds borrowed by Alameda to cover its liabilities, to Bankman-Fried. He would then decide what to send to lenders.
Bankman-Fried would also consider larger strategy decisions in memos to his top execs.
In one memo, Bankman-Fried laid out the merits of shuttering Alameda, pointing to the “PR hit from Alameda and FTX both existing.” He wrote that, “the current Alameda leadership is good, but not good enough to be able to trust with such a big operation.”
He also wrote personal memos after the business had collapsed.
In a Google Doc dated Dec. 25, Bankman-Fried referenced the $600 million-plus stake in Robinhood he’d acquired with capital from Alameda. He wondered whether he should “try calling up the broker HOOD is with and see if they’ll just give me the shares without thinking about it.”
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
A big part of the government’s case revolves around the ways Bankman-Fried allegedly directed spending of money at Alameda long after he was no longer officially running the hedge fund.
In a message to FTX’s then general counsel Can Sun, Bankman-Fried pushed to get a $250 million transfer to hedge fund Modulo Capital expedited in full within eight hours. Sun later testified about the transaction under a non-prosecution agreement with the government.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Getting chummy with celebrities
Bankman-Fried’s chummy ties with celebrities and his enthusiasm for spending hundreds of millions of dollars on endorsement deals were areas of focus for the government.
Prosecutors showed the court a spreadsheet of investments made in 2021. They included $205 million for FTX’s naming rights to Miami’s NBA arena, $150 million to Major League Baseball, $28.5 million to NBA star Stephen Curry, $50 million to quarterback Tom Brady and his then wife Giselle Bundchen, and $10 million to comedian Larry David. The deals on the spreadsheet amounted to a total of $1.13 billion.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Nishad Singh, who was FTX’s director of engineering, testified that the $300 million outlay on investment firm K5 was among the most troubling. He said Bankman-Fried sent him a term sheet detailing hundreds of millions of dollars of bonuses to owners Michael Kives and Bryan Baum. That followed a K5 dinner Bankman-Fried attended alongside Hillary Clinton, Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Kris and Kylie Jenner.
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Singh said he told Bankman-Fried he was very concerned and that the K5 investment was “value extractive.” He also said he asked Bankman-Fried if the investment was made with his money or FTX’s. The spreadsheet showed it came from Alameda.
In a motion to dismiss a complaint in bankruptcy court against K5, the firm’s lawyers said the “plaintiffs attempt to make Kives and Baum complicit in SBF’s wrongdoing has no basis in fact.”
Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Leaked audio
In an all-hands meeting on the evening of Nov. 9, 2022, Alameda Research employees gathered in a circle to listen to Ellison, the CEO, who was sitting on a beanbag. She told staffers about Alameda’s borrowing from FTX, and said the exchange now had a “shortfall of user funds.”
Christian Drappi, a former software engineer at Alameda, was one of the 15 people in attendance at the meeting in the Hong Kong office. Ten others joined via video from the Bahamas.
In his testimony, Drappi described Ellison’s demeanor that night as “sunken.” He said she was “kinda slouching” and “did not display confident body language.”
In the recording of the Ellison meeting that was played for the jury, Drappi can be heard asking about FTX’s plan to pay back customers. Ellison said the company would raise money to fill the hole. Drappi asked Ellison if Alameda’s loans were collateralized through the spot margin group. She said they weren’t, and Drappi said, “That seems pretty bad.”
Caroline Ellison is questioned during Sam Bankman-Fried’s fraud trial over the collapse of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, at Federal Court in New York City, U.S., October 11, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Encrypted messages
Of the hundreds of items entered into evidence, a bank of messages on encrypted app Signal paint perhaps the clearest picture of Bankman-Fried’s alleged crimes.
One thread, dubbed “small group chat,” included 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; and former FTX executive Ryan Salame.
Prosecutors are relying heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Early in the morning on Nov. 7, the defendant put forth some “potential todos,” including halting withdrawals, sending a “confident tweet thread” and reaching out to firms such as Silverlake, Sequoia, and Apollo as they “wake up over the next few hours” to try to shore up cash.
Later that morning, 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%. Out of options, Bankman-Fried turned to Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who announced he’d signed a nonbinding 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.
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.”
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.”
As the grand scheme collapsed months later, 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.
The update incentive applies to Tesla’s entire lineup of new vehicles.
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Tesla also introduced a new incentive for Lyft drivers. They are eligible to $1,000 in Tesla credits when taking delivery and $1,000 from Lyft if they complete 100 deliveries by July 13.
The automaker wrote on its website:
Eligible Lyft drivers who purchase a new Tesla vehicle can receive $1,0001 in Tesla Credits upon taking delivery and a $1,000 incentive from Lyft after completing 100 trips on or before July 13, 2025. Tesla Credits can be used toward Supercharging, a new Tesla vehicle, service appointments or select Tesla Shop or upgrade purchases. Offer available to active Lyft drivers in good standing.
Tesla also started reaching out to Cybertruck reservation holders to let them know that they only have a month before they can’t take advantage of lower FSD prices.
The automaker wrote in the email:
As an early reservation holder, you have access to a reserved Full Self-Driving (Supervised) price of $7,000. To keep this price, you’ll need to take delivery by June 15, 2025. After June 15, 2025, FSD (Supervised) will be available at the latest price, which is currently $8,000.
When Tesla started taking Cybertruck reservations in 2019, Tesla said that by reserving the truck, reservation holders were locking in the then $7,000 price for its ‘Full Self-Driving’ package.
It looks like Tesla is now putting a deadline to take advantage of this deal to boost orders of the Cybertruck, which has proven to be a commercial flop.
On top of all these incentives, Tesla is also subsidizing interest rates to offer 0% financing on Model 3, and 1.99% financing on Model Y.
All those incentives in place point to Tesla having significant demand issues in the US.
Tesla’s global sales came about 50,000 units below expectations, which the company blamed on the production changeover of Model Y, its most popular model by far.
However, production is now back up to normal in Q2, and Tesla is clearly having issues selling the updated Model Y.
The automaker has no backlog of orders for the new Model Y and vehicles are already piling up in inventory:
We reported last week that Tesla employees wrote an open letter calling for Elon Musk’s removal as CEO due to the damage he has caused to the brand.
This is not a great sign for Tesla. These are end-of-quarter level incentives when we are just about halfway through the quarter.
And that’s just in the US, where Tesla’s sale performance is more opaque.
In Europe and China, where we know for a fact that Tesla is struggling with sales, the automaker is virtually offering 0% financing on its entire lineup.
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The electric box van experts at Harbinger announced a new, EREV version of their medium-duty van that pairs a big battery with a small, gas-powered ICE engine to offer fleets that are hesitant to electrify a massive 500 miles of autonomy on a single charge + tank.
The American truck brand is putting its latest $100 million raise to good use, developing a cost-competitive EREV chassis that marries a low-emissions 1.4L inline four-cylinder gas engine with a close coupled 800V generator sending power to a 140 or 175 kW battery for up to 500 miles of fully loaded range. More than enough, in other words, to meet the needs of just about any fleet you can think of.
That’s a good thing, too, because medium-duty trucks are put to work in just about any circumstance you can think of, as well – a fact that’s not lost on Harbinger.
“Medium-duty vehicles serve an incredibly diverse range of applications, just like the fleets and operators that rely on them, ” explains John Harris, Co-founder and CEO, Harbinger. “There are some fleets whose needs simply can’t be met with a purely electric vehicle—and we recognize that. Our hybrid is designed for use cases and routes that go beyond what an all-electric system typically supports. The series hybrid delivers the benefits of an electric drivetrain, along with the added confidence of a range extender when needed.”
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In addition an up-front cost that should make it an attractive prospect for fleet buyers, the new Harbinger EREV pack performance that should made it attractive for its drivers, too. The new chassis’ electric powertrain delivers 440 hp and 1,140 lb-ft of tq for quick acceleration into traffic and smooth running, even under load. Charging performance is also quick, with the ability to get the big battery from 10-80% charge in just under an hour on a 150 kW port.
You’ve heard all this before
Thor hybrid RV concept; via Thor.
If that sounds familiar, that’s because it is. This medium-duty chassis was first shown last year, making its debut under a Thor Class A motorhome concept that we covered in September. That vehicle promised the same great EREV range and capability to a market that values independence and spontaneity more than most, and bringing those values to a medium-duty commercial market that’s lapping up “messy middle” propaganda from Shell NACFE is just smart business.
The new Harbinger chassis’ batteries are manufactured by Panasonic. No word on who is making the 1.4L ICE generator, but my money’s on the GM SGE four-cylinder last seen in the gas-powered Chevy Spark. You guys are smart, though – if you have a better guess who the supplier might be, let us know in the comments.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
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President Donald Trump wants to revive the struggling coal industry in the U.S. by deploying plants to power the data centers that the Big Tech companies are building to train artificial intelligence.
Trump issued an executive order in April that directed his Cabinet to find areas of the U.S. where coal-powered infrastructure is available to support AI data centers and determine whether the infrastructure can be expanded to meet the growing electricity demand from the nation’s tech sector.
Trump has repeatedly promoted coal as power source for data centers. The president told the World Economic Forum in January that he would approve power plants for AI through emergency declaration, calling on the tech companies to use coal as a backup power source.
“They can fuel it with anything they want, and they may have coal as a backup — good, clean coal,” the president said.
Trump’s push to deploy coal runs afoul of the tech companies’ environmental goals. In the short-term, the industry’s power needs may inadvertently be extending the life of existing coal plants.
Coal produces more carbon dioxide emissions per kilowatt hour of power than any other energy source in the U.S. with the exception of oil, according to the Energy Information Administration. The tech industry has invested billions of dollars to expand renewable energy and is increasingly turning to nuclear power as a way to meet its growing electricity demand while trying to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that fuel climate change.
For coal miners, Trump’s push is a potential lifeline. The industry has been in decline as coal plants are being retired in the U.S. About 16% of U.S. electricity generation came from burning coal in 2023, down from 51% in 2001, according to EIA data.
Peabody Energy CEO James Grech, who attended Trump’s executive order ceremony at the White House, said “coal plants can shoulder a heavier load of meeting U.S. generation demands, including multiple years of data center growth.” Peabody is one of the largest coal producers in the U.S.
Grech said coal plants should ramp up how much power they dispatch. The nation’s coal fleet is dispatching about 42% of its maximum capacity right now, compared to a historical average of 72%, the CEO told analysts on the company’s May 6 earnings call.
“We believe that all coal-powered generators need to defer U.S. coal plant retirements as the situation on the ground has clearly changed,” Grech said. “We believe generators should un-retire coal plants that have recently been mothballed.”
Tech sector reaction
There is a growing acknowledgment within the tech industry that fossil fuel generation will be needed to help meet the electricity demand from AI. But the focus is on natural gas, which emits less half the CO2 of coal per kilowatt hour of power, according the the EIA.
“To have the energy we need for the grid, it’s going to take an all of the above approach for a period of time,” Kevin Miller, Amazon’s vice president of global data centers, said during a panel discussion at conference of tech and oil and gas executives in Oklahoma City last month.
“We’re not surprised by the fact that we’re going to need to add some thermal generation to meet the needs in the short term,” Miller said.
Thermal generation is a code word for gas, said Nat Sahlstrom, chief energy officer at Tract, a Denver-based company that secures land, infrastructure and power resources for data centers. Sahlstrom previously led Amazon’s energy, water and sustainability teams.
Executives at Amazon, Nvidia and Anthropic would not commit to using coal, mostly dodging the question when asked during the panel at the Oklahoma City conference.
“It’s never a simple answer,” Amazon’s Miller said. “It is a combination of where’s the energy available, what are other alternatives.”
Nvidia is able to be agnostic about what type of power is used because of the position the chipmaker occupies on the AI value chain, said Josh Parker, the company’s senior director of corporate sustainability. “Thankfully, we leave most of those decisions up to our customers.”
Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark said there are a broader set of options available than just coal. “We would certainly consider it but I don’t know if I’d say it’s at the top of our list.”
Sahlstrom said Trump’s executive order seems like a “dog whistle” to coal mining constituents. There is a big difference between looking at existing infrastructure and “actually building new power plants that are cost competitive and are going to be existing 30 to 40 years from now,” the Tract executive said.
Coal is being displaced by renewables, natural gas and existing nuclear as coal plants face increasingly difficult economics, Sahlstrom said. “Coal has kind of found itself without a job,” he said.
“I do not see the hyperscale community going out and signing long term commitments for new coal plants,” the former Amazon executive said. (The tech companies ramping up AI are frequently referred to as “hyperscalers.”)
“I would be shocked if I saw something like that happen,” Sahlstrom said.
Coal retirements strain grid
But coal plant retirements are creating a real challenge for the grid as electricity demand is increasing due to data centers, re-industrialization and the broader electrification of the economy.
The largest grid in the nation, the PJM Interconnection, has forecast electricity demand could surge 40% by 2039. PJM warned in 2023 that 40 gigawatts of existing power generation, mostly coal, is at risk of retirement by 2030, which represents about 21% of PJM’s installed capacity.
Data centers will temporarily prolong coal demand as utilities scramble to maintain grid reliability, delaying their decarbonization goals, according to a Moody’s report from last October. Utilities have already postponed the retirement of coal plants totaling about 39 gigawatts of power, according to data from the National Mining Association.
“If we want to grow America’s electricity production meaningfully over the next five or ten years, we [have] got to stop closing coal plants,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC’s “Money Movers” last month.
But natural gas and renewables are the future, Sahlstrom said. Some 60% of the power sector’s emissions reductions over the past 20 years are due to gas displacing coal, with the remainder coming from renewables, Sahlstrom said.
“That’s a pretty powerful combination, and it’s hard for me to see people going backwards by putting more coal into the mix, particularly if you’re a hyperscale customer who has net-zero carbon goals,” he said.