Former FTX US President Brett Harrison criticized Sam Bankman-Fried for manipulating and threatening colleagues who offered solutions to revamp the management structure of FTX US.
Harrisson share his experiences with Bankman-Fried and FTX US on December 14, explaining how he was hired “casually over text” in March 2021 after working together at New York trading firm Jane Street for a few years.
But six months into Harrison’s tenure at FTX US, “cracks began to form” between the two, he said.
Although he recalled that Bankman-Fried was a “sensitive and intellectually curious person” at first, Harrison said he saw “utter insecurity and intransigence” in Bankman-Fried when faced with conflict. , particularly when Harrison suggested FTX US establish separate branches for its executive, developers, and legal teams.
16/49 I saw in this first conflict his total insecurity and his intransigence when his decisions were called into question, his wickedness and the volatility of his temperament. I realized he wasn’t the one I remembered.
—Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison added that he “wasn’t sure what accounted for the drastic change” in Bankman-Fried’s erratic behavior, although he suspects mental health issues may have been a “contributing factor”.
Part of this irrational behavior described by Harrison included a series of gaslighting and manipulation tactics that Bankman-Fried used against Harrison and other colleagues in their attempt to clean up the corporate mess of FTX US.
Harrison also recalled his last attempt to resolve FTX US organizational issues with Bankman-Fried, saying he threatened to “destroy my professional reputation” if a formal apology was not received:
29/49 In response, I was threatened on Sam’s behalf that I would be fired and that Sam would destroy my professional reputation. I was asked to formally retract what I had written and to issue an apology to Sam that was written for me.
—Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison said that event “consolidated” her decision to leave.
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Regarding the fraud charges now leveled against Bankman-Fried and other FTX colleagues, Harrison said he was blindsided by the company’s alleged mixing and misuse of billions of dollars in client funds. :
“I could never have guessed that underlying these sorts of issues – which I had seen in other more mature companies over the course of my career and which I thought were not fatal to the success of the company – was a multi-billion dollar fraud.”
“If any of us had suspected let alone learned the truth, we would have immediately reported it,” he added.
Bankman-Fried was released on bail after posting $250 million bond and pleading not guilty to the eight criminal charges against him on January 3.
Harrison resigned as US chairman of FTX on September 27 – about five weeks before FTX’s catastrophic collapse – where he said he had moved into an advisory role.
