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
In sentencing FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried to a 25-year prison sentence on Thursday, Judge Lewis Kaplan cited testimony from Caroline Ellison, an ex-girlfriend of the defendant and early recruit into his crypto enterprise.
“I keep coming back to Ms. Ellison’s testimony that he knew it was wrong,” Kaplan said at the sentencing hearing in downtown Manhattan. “He knew it was criminal.”
Ellison was the star witness for the Department of Justice in its prosecution of Bankman-Fried. She agreed to a plea deal in December 2022, a month after FTX spiraled into bankruptcy.
As part of her testimony at the criminal trial late last year, Ellison supplied the government and the jury with text messages, documents and secret recordings that ultimately helped lead to Bankman-Fried’s conviction on all seven charges against him.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said in a statement after the sentencing on Thursday that Bankman-Fried’s “deliberate and ongoing lies demonstrated a brazen disregard for his customers’ expectations and disrespect for the rule of law, all so that he could secretly use his customers’ money to expand his own power and influence.”
Ellison, who ran FTX’s sister hedge fund Alameda Research, pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Though Ellison faces similar sentencing guidelines to Bankman-Fried, she’s expected to receive a far more lenient sentence due to her role as a cooperating witness.
Caroline Ellison is questioned as Sam Bankman-Fried watches during his fraud trial before U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan over the collapse of FTX, the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, at Federal Court in New York City, October 11, 2023 in this courtroom sketch.
Jane Rosenberg | Reuters
Ellison’s complicated ties to SBF
Ellison jumped into Bankman-Fried’s crypto orbit in 2017.
She’d been working as a trader at Jane Street, where Bankman-Fried got his start in finance. Bankman-Fried had reportedly convinced the Stanford graduate to ditch her Wall Street gig and join Alameda, when the hedge fund was still in its original Bay Area office.
Ellison spent years as Bankman-Fried’s on-again, off-again girlfriend and, at times, his roommate. She followed Bankman-Fried from California to Hong Kong and ultimately to the Bahamas, as Bankman-Fried repeatedly shifted headquarters for his crypto companies.
Michael Lewis wrote about Ellison in his book, “Going Infinite,” which covered Bankman-Fried’s rise and fall. In 2021, Ellison was promoted to CEO of Alameda, a job for which, according to Lewis’s reporting, neither Ellison nor Bankman-Fried found her particularly well suited.
“Caroline sensed that, even as Sam promoted her to CEO of Alameda Research, he disapproved of her job performance — and she shared his opinion,” Lewis wrote.
Lewis shared an excerpt from one of the memos that Ellison had sent Bankman-Fried. “It feels like I’m doing a much worse job managing Alameda than you would if you were working on it full-time,” she wrote.
In April 2021, Ellison tweeted about “regular amphetamine use” in a thread that also talked about the “herculean” effort it took for her to get off of her couch and go for a hike.
Court filings show that Ellison’s compensation paled in comparison to other top executives. Of the $3.2 billion in payouts to the exchange’s founders and other senior employees, FTX’s head of engineering, Nishad Singh, received $587 million, co-founder Gary Wang got $246 million and $2.2 billion went to Bankman-Fried. Ellison received $6 million.
Some of Ellison’s private diary entries were leaked by Bankman-Fried to The New York Times, which published a report about them last July, months before the trial. The act ultimately landed Bankman-Fried back in jail after Kaplan revoked his bail for alleged witness tampering.
In a Google document from February 2022 shared with the Times, Ellison wrote, “I have been feeling pretty unhappy and overwhelmed with my job. … At the end of the day I can’t wait to go home and turn off my phone and have a drink and get away from it all.”
She added, “It doesn’t really feel like there’s an end in sight.”
‘Trying to fix problems’
But it was in the courtroom that jurors got to hear Ellison for the first time.
U.S. Attorney Thane Rehn said during the trial that Bankman-Fried “was using her as a front” when “in reality, he was still calling the shots at Alameda.” Over the course of her multi-day testimony, Ellison helped prosecutors build a narrative that she was acting at the direction of Bankman-Fried in helping him steal customer money from FTX and using it to help prop up Alameda, which was suffering in the wake of the crypto winter.
Ellison said Bankman-Fried was still CEO of Alameda when the funneling of money began. She said she was under the impression that it was FTX customer money because the sums exceeded the exchange’s profits and the amount of capital it had raised.
In mid-2021, when FTX bought equity in the company back from rival exchange and early investor Binance, FTX used $1 billion in customer funds for the transaction, Ellison testified.
Ellison said she considered resigning from Alameda at various points from 2019 to November 2022.
On one of her Google Docs, Ellison had a section entitled “limiting factors in scaling,” which she said referred to things that were holding back Alameda. The first thing she listed was management, including a comment on her former co-CEO Sam Trabucco.
“I feel like neither Trabucco nor I has been doing a great job of pushing on stuff,” she wrote. “We’re in the mode of maintaining status quo and trying to fix problems.”
In terms of the commingling of operations between FTX and Alameda, Ellison admitted on the witness stand that the two firms didn’t have a proper “Chinese wall” separating the businesses.
During her testimony, Ellison mostly avoided eye contact with Bankman-Fried, staring down at her hands between questions and frequently flipping her hair over her left shoulder. Bankman-Fried also often looked away, with hands clenched.
Ellison told the jury that her breakup with Bankman-Fried in the spring of 2022 affected communications between the two of them. They would talk mostly over Signal despite living in the same apartment, and they largely avoided each other outside of work.
Danielle Sassoon, the assistant U.S. attorney representing the government, told Kaplan several times “the defendant has laughed, visibly shaken his head, and scoffed,” which she said could be having an effect on Ellison “given the history of this relationship, the prior attempts to intimidate her, the power dynamic, their romantic relationship.”
Caroline Ellison, former chief executive officer of Alameda Research LLC, arrives to court in New York, US, on Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023.
Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Secret recordings and texts
Of the hundreds of items entered into evidence during the trial, a bank of messages on encrypted app Signal was among the most calamitous for Bankman-Fried.
The government presented a series of Signal exchanges involving Bankman-Fried, Ellison, Wang and other top execs. In one such exchange, from Nov. 8, 2022, Ellison appealed to Bankman-Fried and other members of the inner circle, asking for help on optics and public messaging.
Prosecutors relied heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
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 day, FTX issued a pause on all customer withdrawals.
The following day, Ellison again looked to the group for guidance about how to handle an all-hands meeting for Alameda’s roughly 30 employees.
Ellison’s proposal was to tell them, “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 relied heavily on text messages sent among FTX and Alameda Research executives in the case against Sam Bankman-Fried.
Source: SDNY
Ellison ended up divulging a lot more than that in the staff meeting, a secret recording of which was played for the jury.
“Alameda borrowed a bunch of money,” which it used to make investments, Ellison said at the meeting. 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.
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss a big Tesla Robotaxi setback, the new Mercedes-Benz CLA EV, Bollinger is over, and more.
Today’s episode is brought to you by Climate XChange, a nonpartisan nonprofit working to help states pass effective, equitable climate policies. Sales end on Dec. 8th for its 10th annual EV raffle, where participants have multiple opportunities to win their dream model. Visit CarbonRaffle.org/Electrek to learn more.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
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Segway’s feature-packed E3 Pro electric scooter with Apple Find My hits new $500 Black Friday low (Save $200)
Segway’s Black Friday Sale is in full gear and currently seeing hundreds in savings and plenty of returning and new low prices on its e-scooters and e-bikes. One such standout is Segway’s latest E3 Pro Electric Scooter down at $499.99 shipped, and which seems to have disappeared from Amazon’s marketplace. Carrying a $700 MSRP since launching back at the top of October, we’ve only seen this model given $100 price cuts in its launch deal and the brand’s Halloween and early Black Friday sales. Now, with things having ramped up with increased savings now that Black Friday is in full swing, you can score a larger-than-ever $200 markdown to a new all-time low price, giving you an advanced upgrade to your commute that I have been loving so far since getting one a short time ago.
I’ve been riding around Brooklyn for a short time now with my own Segway E3 Pro Electric Scooter and have been loving my experience so far, as it’s a MAJOR step up from the very basic E22 model I’ve had for short travels since 2020. While power has been significantly ramped up from its E2 Pro predecessor, this new generation still retains a fairly lightweight 40-pound design, which I am able (as a not-so-strong person) to carry easily with one hand/arm up and down my second-story stoop.
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Segway’s E3 Pro comes bearing a 400W motor (with 800W peaking) alongside a 368Wh battery, the combination of which delivers up to 34 miles of commuting support for your travels at up to 20 MPH speeds. The regenerative brake paired with the brand’s SegRange Optimization tech really lends towards the extended travel times here, with safety taken into mind with the SegRide stability enhancement tech, the latest traction control system, turn signaling, RGB ambient lighting for nighttime journeys, and a bright headlight. What’s more, security is bolstered by the Apple Find My inclusion for those worried about tracking it down should theft (or forgetfulness) occur.
One thing I have really been enjoying, especially when riding over more pot-hole lined streets, is Segway’s E3 Pro’s dual elastomer suspension, which does a great job of smoothing out overall rides, while providing added cushioning when sudden, jolting sections of the road (or debris/trash) are driven over. Along with all those, there are also additional features, including the previously mentioned rear electronic regen brake getting a companion front drum brake, as well as 10-inch self-sealing jelly tires, an IPX5 water-resistant build, a 265-pound total payload, and a 3-inch full-color LED screen for setting adjustments.
Score up to 47% Black Friday savings on NIU EVs, like the 2025 KQi 200F e-scooter at its $529 low (Reg. $799), more from $279
NIU’s Black Friday EV Sale is in full motion now, taking up to 47% off its lineup of e-scooters and e-bikes, like the KQi 200F Foldable Handlebar Electric Scooter for $529 shipped, which you can currently only find in a used condition at Amazon. This is one of the brand’s newer 2025 models that fetches $799 at full price, which dipped down to this rate for the first time earlier in the month before these Black Friday savings. Now, you’re getting another shot at this all-time low price with $270 savings, giving you a solid commuter that sits among the mid-range models from NIU.
The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.
Tesla’s much-awaited entry into the Indian market has resulted in very slow sales to start, but it may not all be bad.
We’ve covered the years-long effort of Tesla to enter the Indian auto market. There have been a lot of intentions and fits and starts, but due to protectionist schemes in the country it never made a lot of sense for Tesla to enter.
That changed this year in March, when India waived EV import duties, allowing foreign firms to bring their cars in for sale. While India does have some strong local brands in Mahindra and Tata, this opened the gates to Chinese, German, Korean and American brands – namely, Tesla.
So far, other American companies have declined to bring their EVs to India, but Tesla opened its first showroom in Mumbai, India’s most populous city and financial capital, in July of this year. It opened a larger “Tesla Center” showroom in Gurugram, outside Delhi, this week.
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So, Tesla is only getting started in India, but by all measures it has been an exceedingly slow start, according to the BBC.
Dealership data shows that Tesla has only sold “just over” 100 cars in India since July, an exceedingly low number by any measure – especially when considering the India is now the most populous country in the world, with a population of just under 1.5 billion.
The numbers look a little less bad when comparing against EV sales in the country. While India has sold an impressive 2 million electric vehicles this year, the vast majority of them have been electric scooters.
Electric passenger cars are a much lower share at around 160k total unit sales this year so far, making up only around 3% of the passenger car market. And the majority of those are lower-cost domestic brands Mahindra and Tata or a growing section of Chinese challengers, with very few sales from overseas luxury brands.
Tesla could be included in that “luxury brand” list, largely due to the price of its imported vehicles. While the Model Y starts at $40k in the US, that price rises to 5,989,000 Rupees in India (~$67k USD). This is simply an unaffordable price for the vast majority of Indians – indeed, only around 1% of India’s auto sales are in the “luxury” category.
Further, EV infrastructure is not very well developed in the country. Tesla has one Supercharger in India, and two listed as “coming soon” in the Gurugram area. There are thousands of other charging points across India (and of course, drivers can charge overnight at home), but the number is still relatively low compared to the country’s population.
Meanwhile, other brands’ EV sales are growing well in India. The auto market as a whole has grown by about 13% this year in the developing country, but EV car sales have grown by 57% in the same period, rapidly outpacing the auto industry as a whole.
Much of that sales growth has been driven by Chinese EVs, which make up around a third of the market. That’s around ~60k Chinese EVs sold this year in India.
Even luxury German EVs from Mercedes, BMW and Audi have sold around 4,000 units so far this year, not a large number, but certainly dwarfing Tesla’s.
So while it’s tempting to look at Tesla’s poor numbers and make excuses about the size of the EV market, ability of Indians to afford luxury vehicles, or state of India’s charging network, it’s hard to compare that low ~100 sales number at any of the competition and label it as anything other than an extremely poor showing.
But, you do have to start somewhere, and the company is only a few months in. So we’ll have to see where it goes from here – though with the sales we’ve seen so far in Mumbai, entering the Delhi market is unlikely to forestall Tesla’s current global sales decline.
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