Sam Bankman-Fried says he will appear before a House Financial Services Committee hearing set for Tuesday, but the former FTX CEO will not be attending in person.
Bankman-Fried made the revelation in his latest interview Monday morning during a Twitter Spaces chat hosted by Unusual Whales, where he said he would not make the trip to Capitol Hill because it is “also frankly pretty important” for him to remain in the Bahamas where he has been staying for the past year running his businesses.
“I’m quite overbooked and was not planning to be testifying until, like, very recently,” Bankman-Fried explained, adding that he did not want to leave the Bahamas “from a security standpoint” because currently “the paparazzi effect is quite large” when he tries to venture out.
When asked whether he feared he might be detained if he stepped foot in the U.S., Bankman-Fried said, “I don’t believe I would be, but I haven’t done a deep dive into that.”
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Lawmakers are seeking answers from Bankman-Fried as they investigate how his firm lost billions of dollars in investors’ funds. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last month and its new CEO, John Ray III, is working to piece together what happened.
Bankman-Fried has sat for numerous media interviews since FTX fell apart, but has not yet spoken under oath to lawmakers.
House Financial Service Committee Chairwoman Maxine Waters, D-Calif., praised the former CEO for his candor in those public discussions earlier this month and asked for his voluntary participation at Tuesday’s hearing. Waters followed up last week threatening to subpoena Bankman-Fried if he chose not to participate.
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The Senate Banking Committee is holding a hearing this week on the FTX collapse, too, which is slated for Wednesday. Chairman Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, and ranking member Pat Toomey, R-Pa., also threatened to subpoena Bankman-Fried if he does not agree to appear.
But Bankman-Fried said during Monday’s interview that he has no current plans to appear before the Senate panel this week, calling it “duplicative” since he will be speaking to the House committee the day prior.
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Brown’s office did not immediately respond to FOX Business‘ inquiry as to whether the committee has subpoenaed Bankman-Fried, and a spokesperson for Toomey declined to comment.