The former boss of FTX’s US operations quit the company last year after a “protracted disagreement” with disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried led to his bonus getting “drastically” slashed, according to a report filed by the bankrupt company.
The details on former FTX.US President Brett Harrison’s abrupt exit last September after less than 18 months on the job — and just weeks before FTX’s disastrous collapse — were included in the 45-page report filed by FTX’s current CEO, John Ray III, in Delaware bankruptcy court.
Harrison is also said to have clashed with former FTX engineering chief Nishad Singh – a longtime member of Bankman-Fried’s inner circle who has pleaded guilty to criminal fraud charges and cooperated with the feds. Bankman-Fried is accused of stealing billions from FTX customers.
“Efforts to clarify corporate responsibilities and enhance compliance were not welcome and resulted in backlash,” the report said.
“For example, the President of FTX.US resigned following a protracted disagreement with Bankman-Fried and Singh over the lack of appropriate delegation of authority, formal management structure, and key hires at FTX.US,” the report added.
Top FTX brass purportedly “drastically reduced” a scheduled bonus payment to Harrison following the dispute, according to Ray’s account. Additionally, an unnamed “senior internal counsel” purportedly demanded that Harrison “apologize to Bankman-Fried for raising the concerns, which he refused to do.”
A separate, unnamed lawyer within FTX Group was “summarily terminated after expressing concerns about Alameda’s lack of corporate controls, capable leadership, and risk management,” the report added.
Harrison had previously detailed his negative experience at FTX in a lengthy Twitter threat in January, writing that he faced major blowback from the company’s leaders after submitting a written complaint about its problems in April 2022.
“In response, I was threatened on Sam’s behalf that I would be fired and that Sam would destroy my professional reputation,” Harrison tweeted at the time. “I was instructed to formally retract what I’d written and to deliver an apology to Sam that had been drafted for me.”
“That event solidified my decision to leave,” he added.
The 45-page report marked the latest damning account from Ray, who has repeatedly blasted Bankman-Fried and his close associates since he took over as CEO last November.
Ray wrote that FTX’s downfall was a tale of “hubris, incompetence, and greed.”
“These individuals stifled dissent, commingled and misused corporate and customer funds, lied to third parties about their business, joked internally about their tendency to lose track of millions of dollars in assets, and thereby caused the FTX Group to collapse as swiftly as it had grown,” the report said.
Bankman-Fried is currently under house arrest while awaiting his trial later this fall.
He faces well over 100 years in prison on various fraud charges related to his alleged misdeeds while running his cryptocurrency empire. He has denied any wrongdoing.
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