Caroline Ellison tells court that Sam Bankman-Fried wanted to buy Snapchat: reports

Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried reportedly wanted to acquire the parent company of Snapchat, former Alameda Research CEO Caroline Ellison told the court on Wednesday.

Ellison kept a list of “things Sam is freaking out about,” which she regularly updated, including “buying SNAP,” the parent company of Snapchat, according to CNN. Also on that list was “raising funds from MBS,” from the Saudi Arabia crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and “to trade Japanese government bonds,” according to Inner City Press.

Ellison also added to the list “getting regulators to crack down on binance,” according to those reports. Bankman-Fried and Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao had a long public rivalry, with Binance accusing the former FTX CEO of spreading rumors ahead of FTX’s collapse.

Ellison is on her second day of testifying in front of a New York district court against Bankman-Fried. Earlier in the day, she said Bankman-Fried told her to come up with different ways to hide billions in loans to Alameda Research’s balance sheets, according to reporting from Inner City Press.

Ellison described what she and Bankman-Fried did before meeting with Matt Ballensweig, co-head of trading and lending at the crypto lender Genesis, who had asked for updated information on Alameda’s balance sheet.

“He told me to come up with alternative ways to present the information. He wanted me to conceal things on our balance sheet. So I prepared seven different balance sheets. I did not want to be dishonest but I presented the alternatives to Sam and let him decide,” Ellison said.

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