Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) has repeatedly argued in public interviews that he “wasn’t running Alameda Research,” a claim that has only intensified questions about who was actually responsible for the trading firm’s decisions as the FTX and Alameda crisis unfolded. At the center of that debate is Caroline Ellison, the former Alameda chief executive, whose silence has become a major point of attention.
SBF’s defense shifts focus to Alameda leadership
During appearances including the Dealbook Summit, SBF said he did not run Alameda and claimed he didn’t know the size of its positions. He also said he did not know exactly what was happening inside the firm. While SBF has stressed that FTX and Alameda were separate entities, critics have long challenged that characterization. Public records show that SBF founded Alameda Research, while the firm was later run by co-CEOs Sam Trabucco and Caroline Ellison.
If SBF’s version is taken at face value, attention naturally turns to the executives who were formally responsible for Alameda’s operations. Within the crypto community, many have argued that if SBF was not overseeing the firm, then Trabucco and Ellison should have key answers about the company’s trading activity, risk exposure, and internal decision-making.
Ellison remained in charge after Trabucco’s departure
The report notes that Sam Trabucco announced his departure from Alameda on August 24, 2022. After the FTX collapse began to unfold, he posted only a brief message on November 8, 2022, offering support to others affected, and has otherwise stayed quiet. Because Trabucco left less than three months before FTX imploded, Ellison was the executive left leading Alameda during the final stage of the crisis.
Ellison, the daughter of two MIT economists, drew media attention before and after the collapse, but she has offered little direct public explanation. Her last notable statement came after Coindesk published reporting on Alameda’s balance sheet on November 2, 2022. In response, she said the circulating balance sheet covered only a subset of corporate entities and that more than $10 billion in assets were not reflected. She also said Alameda had hedges not listed in the leaked document and had already repaid most of its loans amid tighter crypto credit conditions.
Silence, rumors, and unresolved accountability
Since those posts, Ellison has not spoken publicly in any meaningful way. At the same time, rumors have circulated that she left Hong Kong for Dubai, though the report makes clear that those claims remain unconfirmed. Because some Gulf jurisdictions, including the United Arab Emirates, are often discussed in relation to extradition issues, the rumors have fueled further speculation, even without verified evidence.
SBF’s insistence that he did not run Alameda has therefore not eased criticism. Instead, it has sharpened the question of accountability. The article cites a Twitter Spaces exchange in which Kim Dotcom asked why people should trust SBF after allegedly throwing his former partner “under the bus.” SBF objected strongly to that framing, calling it offensive. Even so, the core issue remains: if SBF truly did not control Alameda, then responsibility for the firm’s actions must lie elsewhere, and the public still lacks a full explanation from the people who formally led it.
So far, Ellison has not given the kind of major media interviews that SBF has done, nor has she offered a detailed account of Alameda’s role in the broader FTX collapse. As long as SBF continues speaking publicly while key Alameda figures remain silent, major questions about oversight, decision-making, and responsibility are likely to remain unresolved.