Sam Bankman-Fried describes his relationship with Sean 'Diddy' Combs in jail
Sam Bankman-Fried, the convicted crypto fraudster who is serving 25 years in prison, is breaking his silence about his life behind bars in a new interview with Tucker Carlson.
One major point of interest about Bankman-Fried has been about whether he has befriended disgraced rapper Sean 鈥淒iddy鈥� Combs, who is serving time in the same Brooklyn detention center on racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking charges. Combs has pleaded not guilty.
Bankman-Fried told Carlson that Combs is 鈥渒ind to people in the unit,鈥� adding that he鈥檚 鈥渂een kind to me.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 kind of a soul crushing place for the world in general, and what we see are just the people that are around us on the inside rather than who we are on the outside,鈥� Bankman-Fried told Carlson in the roughly 40-minute interview .
Carlson said that he and Combs are 鈥渢wo of the most famous prisoners in the world,鈥� but Bankman-Fried won鈥檛 tell the rapper that it was his 33rd birthday this week. 鈥淪omeone else might, but I鈥檓 not,鈥� he said.
Living with a celebrity is one of the more interesting aspects of Bankman-Fried鈥檚 life, he said. That changed last year after he was found guilty for defrauding customers and investors in his failed crypto exchange FTX. His sentence of 25 years was about half of what prosecutors had asked for, but still put him at the high end for sentence length in prominent white-collar fraud cases.
Bankman-Fried said he鈥檚 made some friends, but said prison was a 鈥渨eird environment鈥� because it鈥檚 a 鈥渃ombination of a few other high profile cases and then a lot of 鈥� ex-gangsters, alleged ex-gangsters.鈥� Many of them are 鈥渟urprisingly good at chess,鈥� he learned.
Carlson followed up that it鈥檚 鈥渟ort of weird鈥� to ask Bankman-Fried if crypto regulation is moving in a 鈥済ood direction,鈥� but said he 鈥渃ouldn鈥檛 resist.鈥�
His response? 鈥淗opefully 鈥� Changing the guard helps. But financial regulators 鈥� they鈥檙e big, giant bureaucracies in the federal government 鈥� they鈥檙e not used to changing overnight. They have been playing a big, obstructive role for a decade in crypto.鈥�
As for Bankman-Fried鈥檚 wealth, once worth around $15 billion, has all but diminished. In addition to the prison sentence, he also ordered a forfeiture of $11 billion.
鈥淭he company that I used to own 鈥� had nothing intervened, today it would have about $15 billion of liabilities and about $93 billion of assets,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he answer should be, in theory, yes, there was enough money to pay everyone back in kind. But that鈥檚 not how things worked out. Instead, it all got roiled up in a bankruptcy.鈥�