Jurors in Sam Bankman-Fried criminal trial begin deliberations
Indicted FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried arrives at the U.S. Courthouse in New York City, July 26, 2023.
Amr Alfiky | Reuters
Twelve jurors in a lower Manhattan courtroom have begun to deliberate the fate of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried following a month of testimony from nearly 20 witnesses.
The case was handed to the jury around 3:15 p.m. on Thursday, after U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan finished reading aloud 60 pages worth of instructions. A verdict could come as early as Thursday afternoon, and Judge Kaplan previously ordered the jury to stay until 8:15 p.m, offering free pizza and Uber rides home.
Bankman-Fried, who started digital asset exchange FTX in 2019, and sister hedge fund Alameda Research two years earlier, is charged with seven counts, including wire fraud, securities fraud and money laundering, related to the implosion of his crypto empire late last year.
He faces more than 100 years in prison if convicted. The 31-year-old graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and son of two Stanford legal scholars has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
In order for Bankman-Fried to be found guilty, the jury must unanimously decide beyond a reasonable doubt that the entrepreneur, once hailed as a crypto genius, intended to defraud investors and customers.
The trial, initially anticipated to run until the Thanksgiving holiday, has moved swiftly. The government curtailed its witness list, and ultimately didn’t bring a rebuttal case after the defense rested. The defense called only three witnesses to the stand, with the bulk of its argument relying on the sworn testimony of the defendant.
Both sides have also moved more quickly than expected on direct and cross-examinations.
Judge Kaplan has encouraged the expedited timeline, holding jurors until 6:30 p.m. on Wednesday in order to finish closing arguments. It’s unclear how long the jury will deliberate, but the judge — while emphasizing that he’s not rushing a decision — said he’s willing to stay until 8:15 p.m. Thursday and told jurors the government would cover dinner and likely pay for their ride home.
Jurors listen to testimony during the fraud trial of Sam Bankman-Fried over the collapse of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, at Federal Court in New York City, U.S., October 6, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Mark Cohen, Bankman-Fried’s defense attorney, made his final plea for his client on Wednesday, arguing that the defendant should be found not guilty on all counts, in part because the FTX founder had acted in good faith and without criminal intent, believing everything would work out.
“Every movie needs a villain,” Cohen said of the prosecution’s case against Bankman-Fried, adding that the government had incorrectly portrayed him as a “monster,” a “bad guy,” and a “criminal mastermind.”
Cohen claimed the case against his client was built on the false premise that FTX was a fraudulent enterprise established to intentionally steal customer funds from its “very earliest days.”
While FTX’s lack of a risk management system or chief risk officer reflected poor system controls, bad business decisions aren’t crimes, Cohen said.
Cohen told the jury that if any members of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle truly thought something nefarious was happening, they had options, including resigning, leaving the Bahamas or “blowing the whistle.” None of them did, he said.
‘Meant to reduce his role’
The defense’s chief witness was Bankman-Fried himself, and most of his testimony amounted to a distraction, Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Section, told CNBC earlier this week. As an example, he cited Bankman-Fried’s blaming of Caroline Ellison, his ex-girlfriend and former head of Alameda, for failing to properly hedge.
His testimony was “meant to reduce his role, like his frequent reminders that others were involved, that he had a lot on his plate, that he was young, or that he wasn’t a programmer,” said Mariotti, who’s now a trial partner in Chicago with Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.
Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, leaves Manhattan Federal Court after testifying during the trial of FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, on October 10, 2023 in New York City.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
During the government’s closing arguments, prosecutors reminded jurors of the mountain of evidence key witnesses had provided.
“The defendant schemed and lied to get money, which he spent,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Nicolas Roos told the court.
Roos said there’s “no serious dispute” that $10 billion in customer money that was sitting in FTX’s crypto exchange went missing, with some of it going to pay for real estate, investments, loan repayments and political donations.
“A pyramid of deceit was built by the defendant,” Roos said. “That ultimately collapsed.”
Critical to the failure of FTX was the use of customer funds to cover losses in Alameda’s books following the plunge in crypto prices last year. Roos said Bankman-Fried is the one who gave special privileges to Alameda, allowing the hedge fund to siphon customer money. He knew it was wrong, Roos said, which is why he kept it secretive.
Roos brought up testimony from three firsthand witnesses who said that they’d spoken with Bankman-Fried about the chief issue — a giant hole in the balance sheet.
Bankman-Fried “had the arrogance to think he could get away with it,” Roos said.
Bankman-Fried knew Alameda had a negative net asset value of $2.7 billion, Roos said, but wanted to make another $3 billion in venture investments. The only way to do that was with FTX customer funds, he said.
Additionally, Roos told the jury, client money went to $100 million in real estate expenses, including a $30 million penthouse in the Bahamas and $16 million for his parents’ home.
In referencing the Super Bowl picture with Katy Perry and others, Roos called Bankman-Fried a “celebrity chaser.”
In closing, the prosecution reminded the court that Bankman-Fried directed losses to be shifted to Alameda and that FTX’s insurance fund had made up numbers. Add it all up, Roos said, and it debunks the defense’s main argument that Bankman-Fried acted in good faith and believed everything would work out.
“This was a fraud that occurred on a massive scale,” he said.
National Grid Renewables has broken ground on its 100 MW Apple River Solar Project in Polk County, Wisconsin.
The Wisconsin solar farm, which will use US-made First Solar Series 6 Plus bifacial modules, will be constructed by The Boldt Company, creating 150 construction and service jobs. Apple River Solar will generate over $36 million in direct economic benefits over its first 20 years.
Once it comes online in late 2025, Apple River Solar will supply clean energy to Xcel Energy, which serves customers throughout the Upper Midwest. According to National Grid Renewables, the solar farm will generate enough energy to power around 26,000 homes annually. It will also offset about 129,900 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year – equivalent to taking 30,900 cars off the road.
“We are excited to see this project begin as it underscores our dedication to delivering clean, reliable and affordable energy to our customers,” said Karl Hoesly, President, Xcel Energy-Wisconsin and Michigan. “This project is an important step in those goals while bringing significant economic benefits to Polk County and the local townships.”
Electrek reported in February that Xcel Energy, Minnesota’s largest utility, expects to cut more than 80% – and possibly up to 88% – of its emissions by 2030, putting it on track to hit Minnesota’s goal of net zero by 2040. It also says it’s on track to achieve its clean energy goals for all the Upper Midwest states it serves – Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Michigan.
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Tesla has announced that it will finally deliver 500 kW charging as it is about to install its long-awaited V4 Supercharger cabinets.
The rollout of Supercharger V4 has been a strange one, to say the least.
Tesla has been deploying the new charging stations for two years and calling them “Supercharger V4”, but it has only been deploying the charging stalls.
Supercharger stations are made of two main parts: the stalls, which are where the charging cable is located, and the cabinets, which are generally located further back and include all the power electronics.
For all these new “Supercharger V4”, Tesla was actually using Supercharger V3 cabinets. This has been limiting the power output of the charging stations to 250 kW – although
Today, Tesla officially announced its “V4 Cabinet”, which the automaker claims will enable of “delivering up to 500kW for cars and 1.2MW for Semi.”
Here are the main features of the V4 Cabinet as per Tesla:
- Faster charging: Supports 400V-1000V vehicle architectures, including 30% faster charging for Cybertruck. S3XY vehicles enjoy 250kW charge rates they already experience on V3 Cabinet — charging up to 200 miles in 15 minutes.
- Faster deployments: V4 Cabinet powers 8 posts, 2X the stalls per cabinet. Lower footprint and complexity = more sites coming online faster.
- Next-generation hardware: Cutting-edge power electronics designed to be the most reliable on the planet, with 3X power density enabling higher throughput with lower costs.
Tesla reports that its first sites with the new V4 Cabinets are going into permitting now. The company expects its first sites to open next year.
We recently reported about Tesla’s new Oasis Supercharger project, which includes larger solar arrays and battery packs to operate the charging station mostly off-grid.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to all Supercharger stations, and Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
It took about 8 years, but it sounds like the pieces are now getting actually in place with Supercharger V4, Megapacks, and this new Oasis project.
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Hyundai has a new secret weapon it’s about ready to unleash. To revamp the brand in China and counter BYD’s surge, Hyundai is launching a new AI-powered EV next year. The new model will be Hyundai’s first dedicated electric car for the world’s largest EV market.
With the help of Haomo, a Chinese autonomous startup, Hyundai will launch its first EV equipped with generative AI. It will also be its first model designed specifically for China.
A Hyundai Motor official said (via The Korea Herald) the company is “working to load the software” onto the new EV model, “which will be released in the Chinese market next year.” The spokesperson added, “The level of autonomous driving is somewhere between 2 and 2.5.”
In comparison, Tesla’s Autopilot is considered a level 2 advanced driver assistance system (ADAS) on the SAE scale (0 to 5), meaning it offers limited hands-free features.
With Autopilot, you still have to keep your eyes on the road and hands on the steering wheel, or the system will notify you and eventually disengage.
Haomo’s system, DriveGPT, unveiled last spring, takes inspiration from the OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT.
The system can continuously update in real-time to optimize decision-making by absorbing traffic data patterns. According to Haomo, DriveGPT is used in around 20 models as it looks to play a bigger role in China.
Hyundai hopes new AI-powered EV boosts sales in China
Electric vehicle sales continue surging in China. According to Rho Motion, China set another EV sales record last month with 1.2 million units sold, up 50% from October 2023.
Over 8.4 million EVs were sold in China in the first ten months of 2024, a notable 38% increase from last year.
BYD continues to dominate its home market. According to Autovista24, BYD accounted for 32.9% of all PHEV and EV (NEV) sales in China through September, with over half of the top 20 best-selling EV models.
Tesla was second with a 6.5% share of the market, but keep in mind these numbers only include plug-in models (PHEV).
Like most foreign automakers, Hyundai is struggling to keep up with the influx of low-cost electric models in China. Beijing Hyundai’s sales have been slipping since 2017. Through September, Korean automaker’s share of the Chinese market fell to just 1.2%.
Last month, Hyundai opened its first overseas digital R&D center in China to help kick off its return to the region.
According to local reports, Hyundai is partnering with other local tech companies like Thundersoft, a smart cockpit provider, and others in China to power up its next-gen EVs
With its first AI-powered EV launching next year, Hyundai hopes to turn things around in the region quickly. The new model will be one of five to launch in China through 2026.
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