Former FTX US President Denies Involvement in FTX Collapse

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Brett Harrison, the former president of FTX U.S. has denied involvement in the FTX-Alameda debacle.

1/49 Many have asked questions about my time at FTX US and why I left when I did. As I indicated earlier this week, I’m happy to begin sharing my experiences and perspective publicly.

— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023

In a thread of tweets on Jan 15, the pundit blamed Sam’s “insecurities” on the collapse of FTX, insisting that his exit in September 2021 was a personal decision rather than being fired.

Brett started the job after an offer from Sam in March 2021. According to him, although his first few months at FTX US were wonderful, he lost interest in the position after noticing red flags that were largely overlooked.

Brett, who claims to know Sam from an early age stated that cracks between him and the disgraced crypto mogul started forming six months into the company. After noticing signs of corporate failures, Brett started advocating strongly for establishing separation and independence for the executive, legal, and developer teams of FTX US, but Sam disagreed.

“My relationship with Sam Bankman-Fried and his deputies had reached a point of total deterioration, after months of disputes over management practices at FTX,” wrote Brett.

He also noticed from the start that decisions impacting FTX US would come “without warning” from the Bahamas, despite Sam being rarely engaged in the US entity. He further blamed Sam for hiring individuals in his inner circle rather than those based on merit. According to the former executive, Sam developed a “Mr. know-it-all” attitude suppressing professional advice. Notably, he made sure that Brett, who was the most vocal was isolated from communication on key decision-making.

“I saw in that early conflict his total insecurity and intransigence when his decisions were questioned, his spitefulness, and the volatility of his temperament,” Brett said, adding that “there was tremendous pressure not to disagree with Sam.”

Denying involvement in the collapse, Brett further noted that he was not surprised at the FX collapse although he never could have guessed that the kind of problems he had witnessed was to turn into a multi-billion-dollar fraud.

“It’s clear from what has been made public that the scheme was held closely by Sam and his inner circle at FTX. com and Alameda, which I was not a part of, nor were other executives at FTX US. I understand now why they carefully concealed their criminal activity from us,” he went on. 

Brett’s comments come on the back of heightened queries from the crypto community about his time at FTX US empire. And although Sam has held that users of FTX US were not affected by the collapse of FTX international, the ex-president’s disclosures could help prosecutors in galvanizing their evidence in one of the biggest fraud cases in financial history. 

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