Bret Harrison accused Sam Bankman-Fried of threatening and intimidating colleagues
2023.01.15 00:56
Bret Harrison accused Sam Bankman-Fried of threatening and intimidating colleagues
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – Sam Bankman-Fried has come under fire from former FTX US President Brett Harrison for manipulating and threatening coworkers who proposed solutions to reorganize FTX US’ management structure.
On December 14, Harrison discussed his interactions with Bankman-Fried and FTX US, describing how he was hired in March 2021 “casually over text” after working with Jane Street, a New York-based trading firm, for a few years.
However, six months into Harrison’s employment at FTX US, he claimed, “cracks began to form” between the two.
Harrison said he saw “total insecurity and intransigence” in Bankman-Fried when confronted with conflict, particularly when Harrison suggested FTX US establish separate branches for its executive, developer, and legal teams. Harrison recalled Bankman-Fried being a “sensitive and intellectually curious person” at first.
16/49 In that initial conflict, I observed his total insecurity, intransigence when his decisions were questioned, vengeance, and temperamental turbulence. I realized that he wasn’t who I thought he was.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison went on to say that although he suspected mental health issues might have been a “contributing factor,” he “wasn’t sure what accounted for the dramatic change” in Bankman-Fried’s erratic behavior.
A number of gaslighting and manipulation techniques that Bankman-Fried employed against Harrison and other colleagues in their effort to clean up the corporate mess at FTX US were a component of the irrational behavior that Harrison describes.
Harrison also mentioned his previous attempt to resolve FTX US’s organizational issues with Bankman-Fried, in which he claimed he threatened to “destroy my professional reputation” without receiving a formal apology:
29/49 As a response, Sam threatened me that he would fire me and ruin my professional reputation. I was given the task of writing an apology to Sam and officially retracting what I had written.
— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
The occurrence, according to Harrison, “solidified” his decision to leave.
Harrison stated that he was blinded by the company’s alleged commingling and misuse of billions of dollars in customer funds in relation to the fraud charges that are currently being laid against Bankman-Fried and other FTX colleagues:
“I never could have guessed that multi-billion-dollar fraud was underlying these kinds of issues, which I had seen at other more mature firms in my career and thought were not fatal to business success.”
He added, “We would have reported them immediately if any of us had suspected, let alone learned the truth.”
Bankman-Fried was released on bail on Jan. 3 after posting a bond guarantee of $250 million and pleading not guilty to all eight charges brought against him.
On September 27, roughly five weeks before the catastrophic collapse of FTX, Harrison announced that he had moved into an advisory capacity.
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