Sam Bankman-Fried founded the now-bankrupt crypto exchange FTX.
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A Good Morning America journalist said interviewing ex-FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried “felt like a therapy session.”
“He just had a lot to get off his chest and clearly wanted to get through this,” George Stephanopoulos said.
“There are a lot of things that are worrying me right now,” Bankman-Fried said in response to one question.
An Good Morning America journalist said that interviewing former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried “felt like a therapy session” for the crypto mogul.
“He really wanted to talk,” George Stephanopoulos said. “He just had a lot to get off his chest and clearly wanted to get through this.”
Stephanopoulos said that during a short phone call with Bankman-Fried on Saturday, the ex-CEO invited him to fly over to the Bahamas the next day to talk to him. Stephanopoulos interviewed Bankman-Fried for around two hours on Monday for Good Morning America.
“At some level, it felt like a therapy session,” Stephanopoulos said. It seemed like Bankman-Fried “felt that it was really important for him to get his story out,” he said.
Stephanopoulos added that Bankman-Fried had gone against the advice of his lawyers by speaking to a reporter. He had said on Wednesday at The New York Times’ DealBook Summit that his lawyers had advised him not to speak publicly about the circumstances around FTX’s collapse.
When asked by Stephanopoulos whether he was worried about going to jail, Bankman-Fried said: “There are a lot of things that are worrying me right now, and as best as possible I am trying to focus on what I can do going forward to be helpful.”
“At the end of the day, it’s not my call what happens and the world will judge as it will,” he added.