Former FTX US President Brett Harrison has lashed out at Sam Bankman-Fried for manipulating and threatening colleagues who proposed solutions to reorganize FTX US’ management structure. Harrison shared his experiences with Bankman-Fried and FTX US on Dec. 14, explaining how he was hired “casually over text” in Mar. 2021 after working together at New York-based 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.Despite recalling Bankman-Fried to be a “sensitive and intellectually curious person” at first, 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.16/49 I saw in that early conflict his total insecurity and intransigence when his decisions were questioned, his spitefulness, and the volatility of his temperament. I realized he wasn’t who I remembered.— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison added that he “wasn’t sure what accounted for the dramatic change” in Bankman-Fried’s erratic behavior, though he suspected mental health issues may have been a “contributing factor.” Part of that irrational behavior Harrison describes included a series of gaslighting and manipulation tactics Bankman-Fried used against Harrison and other colleagues in their bid to clean up FTX US’ corporate mess.Harrison also recalled his last attempt to fix FTX US’ organization issues with Bankman-Fried, claiming that he threatened to “destroy my professional reputation” if a formally apology wasn’t 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 instructed to formally retract what I’d written and to deliver an apology to Sam that had been drafted for me.— Brett Harrison (@BrettHarrison88) January 14, 2023
Harrison said that event “solidified” his decision to leave.Related: FTX ex-staffer: Extravagant expenditures and cult-like worshipping of SBFAs for the fraud charges now laid against Bankman-Fried and other FTX colleagues, Harrison said he was blinded by the firm’s alleged commingling and misuse of billions of dollars of customer funds:“I never could have guessed that underlying these kinds of issues — which I’d seen at other more mature firms in my career and believed not to be fatal to business success — was multi-billion-dollar fraud.”“If any one of us had suspected let alone learned the truth, we would have reported them immediately,” he added.Bankman-Fried was granted bail after posting a $250 million bond guarantee and pleading not guilty to all eight criminal charges laid against him on Jan. 3. Harrison stepped down as FTX US President on Sept. 27 — about five weeks before FTX catastrophically collapsed — where he stated that he moved into an advisory role.
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