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.
On today’s fleet-focused episode of Quick Charge, we talk about a hot topic in today’s trucking industry called, “the messy middle,” explore some of the ways legacy truck brands are working to reduce fuel consumption and increase freight efficiency. PLUS: we’ve got ReVolt Motors’ CEO and founder Gus Gardner on-hand to tell us why he thinks his solution is better.
You know, for some people.
We’ve also got a look at the Kenworth Supertruck 2 concept truck, revisit the Revoy hybrid tandem trailer, and even plug a great article by CCJ’s Jeff Seger, who is asking some great questions over there. All this and more – enjoy!
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Thanks to Trump’s repeated executive order attacks on US clean energy policy, nearly $8 billion in investments and 16 new large-scale factories and other projects were cancelled, closed, or downsized in Q1 2025.
The $7.9 billion in investments withdrawn since January are more than three times the total investments cancelled over the previous 30 months, according to nonpartisan policy group E2’s latest Clean Economy Works monthly update.
However, companies continue to invest in the US renewable sector. Businesses in March announced 10 projects worth more than $1.6 billion for new solar, EV, and grid and transmission equipment factories across six states. That includes Tesla’s plan to invest $200 million in a battery factory near Houston that’s expected to create at least 1,500 new jobs. Combined, the projects are expected to create at least 5,000 new permanent jobs if completed.
Michael Timberlake of E2 said, “Clean energy companies still want to invest in America, but uncertainty over Trump administration policies and the future of critical clean energy tax credits are taking a clear toll. If this self-inflicted and unnecessary market uncertainty continues, we’ll almost certainly see more projects paused, more construction halted, and more job opportunities disappear.”
March’s 10 new projects bring the overall number of major clean energy projects tracked by E2 to 390 across 42 states and Puerto Rico. Companies have said they plan to invest more than $133 billion in these projects and hire 122,000 permanent workers.
Since Congress passed federal clean energy tax credits in August 2022, 34 clean energy projects have been cancelled, downsized, or shut down altogether, wiping out more than 15,000 jobs and scrapping $10 billion in planned investment, according to E2 and Atlas Public Policy.
However, in just the first three months of 2025, after Trump started rolling back clean energy policies, 13 projects were scrapped or scaled back, totaling more than $5 billion. That includes Bosch pulling the plug on its $200 million hydrogen fuel cell plant in South Carolina and Freyr Battery canceling its $2.5 billion battery factory in Georgia.
Republican-led districts have reaped the biggest rewards from Biden’s clean energy tax credits, but they’re also taking the biggest hits under Trump. So far, more than $6 billion in projects and over 10,000 jobs have been wiped out in GOP districts alone.
And the stakes are high. Through March, Republican districts have claimed 62% of all clean energy project announcements, 71% of the jobs, and a staggering 83% of the total investment.
A full map and list of announcements can be seen on E2’s website here. E2 says it will incorporate cancellation data in the coming weeks.
Read more: FREYR kills plans to build a $2.6 billion battery factory in Georgia
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Tesla has reportedly delayed the launch of its new “affordable EV,” which is believed to be a stripped-down Model Y, in the United States.
Last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a pivotal decision that altered the automaker’s direction for the next few years.
The CEO canceled Tesla’s plan to build a cheaper new “$25,000 vehicle” on its next-generation “unboxed” vehicle platform to focus solely on the Robotaxi, utilizing the latest technology, and instead, Tesla plans to build more affordable EVs, though more expensive than previously announced, on its existing Model Y platform.
Musk has believed that Tesla is on the verge of solving self-driving technology for the last few years, and because of that, he believes that a $25,000 EV wouldn’t make sense, as self-driving ride-hailing fleets would take over the lower end of the car market.
However, he has been consistently wrong about Tesla solving self-driving, which he first said would happen in 2019.
In the meantime, Tesla’s sales have been decreasing and the automaker had to throttle down production at all its manufacturing facilities.
That’s why, instead of building new, more affordable EVs on new production lines, Musk decided to greenlight new vehicles built on the same production lines as Model 3 and Model Y – increasing the utilization rate of its existing manufacturing lines.
Those vehicles have been described as “stripped-down Model Ys” with fewer features and cheaper materials, which Tesla said would launch in “the first half of 2025.”
Reuters is now reporting that Tesla is seeing a delay of “at least months” in launching the first new “lower-cost Model Y” in the US:
Tesla has promised affordable vehicles beginning in the first half of the year, offering a potential boost to flagging sales. Global production of the lower-cost Model Y, internally codenamed E41, is expected to begin in the United States, the sources said, but it would be at least months later than Tesla’s public plan, they added, offering a range of revised targets from the third quarter to early next year.
Along with the delay, the report also claims that Tesla aims to produce 250,000 units of the new model in the US by 2026. This would match Tesla’s currently reduced production capacity at Gigafactory Texas and Fremont factory.
The report follows other recent reports coming from China that also claimed Tesla’s new “affordable EVs” are “stripped-down Model Ys.”
The Chinese report references the new version of the Model 3 that Tesla launched in Mexico last year. It’s a regular Model 3, but Tesla removed some features, like the second-row screen, ambient lighting strip, and it uses fabric interior material rather than Tesla’s usual vegan leather.
The new Reuters report also said that Tesla planned to follow the stripped-down Model Y with a similar Model 3.
In China, the new vehicle was expected to come in the second half of 2025, and Tesla was waiting to see the impact of the updated Model Y, which launched earlier this year.
Electrek’s Take
These reports lend weight to what we have been saying for a year now: Tesla’s “more affordable EVs” will essentially be stripped-down versions of the Model Y and Model 3.
While they will enable Tesla to utilize its currently underutilized factories more efficiently, they will also cannibalize its existing Model 3 and Y lineup and significantly reduce its already dwindling gross margins.
I think Musk will sell the move as being good in the long term because it will allow Tesla to deploy more vehicles, which will later generate more revenue through the purchase of the “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package.
However, that has been his argument for years, and it has yet to pan out as FSD still requires driver supervision and likely will for years to come, resulting in an extremely low take-rate for the $8,000 package.
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