Former FTX CEO says he has $100,000 left in the bank

(CNN) - Former FTX CEO Samuel Bankman-Fried, who was once one of the richest men in the world, says he has $100,000 left in his bank account after his company plunged into bankruptcy.

Just months ago, his wealth was estimated to be around $26 billion.

“I mean look, I’ve had a bad month,” he said.

Bankman-Fried spoke out for the first time since he resigned after the implosion of his multi-billion dollar empire at the New York Times DealBook Summit

“I’m down to, I think I have one working credit card left. I think there might be $100,000 or something like that,” he said.

Bankman-Fried says he never tried to “commit fraud on anyone.”

The collapse of FTX is under civil and federal investigations into whether it misappropriated customers’ funds when it made loans to his hedge fund, Alameda Research.

“I didn’t knowingly commingle funds. I was frankly surprised by how big Alameda’s position was,” he said.

He is now acknowledging the lack of corporate controls and risk management within the businesses he oversaw.

“Look, I screwed up. Like I was CEO. I was the CEO of FTX. I say this, again and again, that means I had a responsibility. That means that I was responsible ultimately,” Bankman-Fried said.

He says there was no one “chiefly in charge of positional risk of customers on FTX and that feels pretty embarrassing in retrospect.”

FTX, which was once marketed as an easy way for people to get into cryptocurrency, used star athletes like Tom Brady, Naomi Osaka and Stephen Curry to amplify the platform. It even had a Super Bowl advertisement with Larry David.

Now, customers are unclear on how much, if anything, they will be able to get back.

In his interview Wednesday, Bankman-Fried was asked about whether his lawyers were encouraging him to speak out.

“They’re very much not,” he said.

Bankman-Fried adds that he has a duty to explain what happened.

Copyright 2022 CNN Newsource. All rights reserved.