Sam Bankman-Fried continues to maintain, in an interview that was not really an interview, that he was unaware that cash from FTX had been used to settle Alameda’s debts. Jesse Powell, founder and CEO of Kraken, cited the footage of the interview and said that although SBF may not have intended to do harm to other people, he was clearly “recklessly overconfident and just didn’t care” about the consequences of his actions. He said, “What matters is he knew he was gambling with his clients’ money.”

He made the comparison:

“You’re a pro F1 driver. You take your race car off the track and drive it 200 mph through a farmer’s market in a residential neighborhood killing 20 people. Is “I wasn’t paying attention to the signs, speed limit, the RISKS.” exonerating? No. As a pro, you are even more culpable.”

Powell also said that, but his question is: why does SBF continue to conduct these “non-interviews”? What is the purpose of this if he is not going to address the questions that have been asked? The idea to take away from this is that the majority of people are readily duped by misleading speech. According to the creator of the Kraken, the goal here is to make it seem as if it would be reasonable on a political level to pardon SBF.

Though Powell is prominent, he isn’t the only one who has lately criticized SBF in public for his remarks. Even Mike Novogratz, CEO of Galaxy Digital, has gone on a rant about SBF.

The investor thought SBF was “delusional” when he said he never attempted fraud during the live interview. He added that:

“The reality is that Sam and his cohorts perpetuated a fraud. He stole money from people, people should go to jail.”