Less than a day after receiving a seven-and-a-half year “Within hours of receiving an unexpectedly tough prison sentence yesterday—prosecutors had only requested five to seven years for the disgraced executive—Salame was actively posting on Twitter.“Who should I do the first public interview with? Top vote wins,” he wrote. When one Twitter user jokingly suggested he should sit down with the Department of Justice, Salame appeared to make light of his ordeal—responding that he had just received the results from that interview. Had their interview results today already…— Ryan Salame (@rsalame7926) May 28, 2024Just weeks before FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s It’s unclear whether Salame would be in a much better position today had he navigated FTX’s collapse differently. The bulk of the charges levied against the executive concerned the manner in which he helped operate FTX over a multi-year period—including illegally donating to political candidates at Bankman-Fried’s behest, in order to avoid federal disclosure requirements.DecryptThe fallen crypto executive, once worth hundreds of millions of dollars, began tweeting immediately following his sentencing yesterday. That marked the first time Salame had posted on the social media site since FTX’s collapse in November 2022. Among other comments, Salame wrote yesterday that he “had no idea” about a $55 million The 55m loan everyone keeps citing, I had no idea about it until after ftx collapsed. Not a dollar ever touched my account and the receiver had no clue I didn’t know about it. Fun thing to learn while my whole world was imploding.— Ryan Salame (@rsalame7926) May 29, 2024Salame did not address other financial actions he knowingly took amidst FTX’s collapse, however, including withdrawing over $5 million worth of crypto from the exchange just before it declared bankruptcy and shut down. In response to Salame’s post, one Twitter user accused the executive of playing “the victim card.”“I am not and would never be a victim,” Salame Edited by Andrew Hayward
