The Tucker Carlson Show - Sam Bankman-Fried on Life in Prison With Diddy, and How Democrats Stole His Money and Betrayed Him

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Sam Bankman-Fried is doing 25 years behind bars, and is now sharing a cell block with Diddy. He joins us from prison for an update on his new life. (00:00) What Has Prison Been Like? (02:28) Was SBF Ever on Adderall? (04:42) SBF Meeting Diddy in Prison (07:00) How Prison Has Changed SBF’s Perspective (16:24) The Future of Crypto Under Donald Trump (22:57) Does SBF Have Any Money Left? Paid partnerships with: iTrust Capital: Get $100 funding bonus at https://www.iTrustCapital.com/Tucker PureTalk: Switch your cell phone service to a company you can be PROUD to do business with at https://PureTalk.com/Tucker Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Whether it's a family member, friend or furry companion joining your summer road trip, enjoy the peace of mind that comes with Volvo's legendary safety. During Volvo Discover Days, enjoy limited-time savings as you make plans to cruise through Muskoka or down Toronto's bustling streets. From now until June 30th, lease a 2025 Volvo XC60 from 1.74% and save up to $4,000. Conditions apply. Visit your GTA Volvo retailer or go to volvocars.ca for full details. So where are you? Yeah, well, I'm in MDC, Brooklyn, in a little side room. How long have you been there? I've been in prison for about, oh boy, what's it been now?

It's been about two years. So what's it like? It's, I mean, it's sort of dystopian. You know, the fortunate thing, the place I'm in, I'm not in sort of, I'm not in physical danger. And, you know, frankly, a lot of the staff, they're trying to be helpful. They're trying to, you know, do what they can, given the constraints. But, you know, no one wants to be in prison. And you can imagine what happens when you take sort of 40 people, you know, all of whom have been at least charged with crimes, and lock them in a single room for years on end and throw out the key,

which is the most trivial things become all that people have left to care about. Yes. Have you had any problems? Not of the sort of acute kind. Like I haven't had, you know, I haven't been attacked or anything like that. I've had a lot of logistical problems. And, you know, the biggest, frankly, was when I was on trial,

trying to get access to legal work was nearly impossible. I would, you know, on a typical trial day, they'd wake me up at 4 a.m. I'd spend five hours in various buses, vans, and holding cells until my trial started in the morning. Then trial straight through to 5 p.m., another four hours in holding cells and vans. I'd get back at 9 p.m. way after any access to legal work was cut off for the day. So that was the biggest problem. So what do you do all day when you're not on trial?

Well, it's a really good question because there's not a whole lot to do in person. I read books. I've, you know, started reading novels again. I play some chess. And I work on my legal case to the extent I can. You know, there's appeal. There are other things I do, what work I can from in here on that. But the lack of other meaningful things to spend my time on is one of the most kind of soul crushing things about prison. I got to say, we've never talked before, but obviously I've watched you from afar.

And I just also say I feel sorry for every man in prison, no matter what he's accused of or did. I just I don't think we should be locking people away. I know. I guess we have to. But I feel sorry for everyone in prison. I'll just say call me liberal. But you you do you do seem kind of healthier and less jumpy. I have to say after two years in prison. You know, I've had a lot of time to reflect on how to communicate. And in retrospect, you know, I was, I think I was not effective at communicating,

especially when the crisis first hit. And, you know, in the months thereafter, I made a mistake I often make. I get swept up in details and forget to make the bigger picture. You seem like you were just flying high on Adderall every time I saw you on TV. You don't seem that way now. Were you? No, I wasn't. But I was, my mind was racing because there were, you know, a billion things to keep track of.

You know, we sort of typically I'd have, and back when I was running FTX, you know, I'd go on to have an interview, but, you know, while on the interview, there'd be. And I knew that I had something else I had to do right after the interview that I hadn't had time to prepare for yet that I was sort of preparing for in the back of my mind. So maybe like the digital world is bad for us. Is that, I mean, like what's your view of that? You've been taken away from your phone. So that's kind of big. Yeah. Oh, it is. I prefer having the digital world um that you know at the end of the day like it's but but i will say that when i say that it's less from a perspective of like enjoyment or or or you know pleasure or leisure and it's more from a perspective of productivity and ability to have impact in the world.

You know, from that perspective, it's so hard to do anything. We don't have the digital world. So, like, have you made friends there? Are you hanging with Diddy? I think he's in there with you. He is. He is. And it's, I don't know, you know, he's been kind. The I've made some friends.

It's it's a weird environment. You know, it's sort of a combination of a few other high profile cases and a lot of, you know, ex-gangsters or sort of, you know, alleged ex-gangsters. Definitely alleged. So what's did he like i you know obviously i've i've only seen one one piece of him um which is you know did he in prison and you know he's been kind to people in the unit um he's been kind to me um it's also it's it's a position no one wants to be in you know obviously he doesn't i don't as you said it's it's kind of it's, it's a position no one wants to be in, you know, obviously he doesn't, I don't, as you said, it's, it's kind of a soul crushing place for the world in general. Um, and yeah, what we see are just the people that, that are around us on the inside rather than we are on the outside. Oh, I'm sure. And I mean, you're two of the most famous prisoners in the world in the same unit.

What are the armed robbers think? Well, it's a really interesting question. And of course, some of them, I think, are thinking like, wow, this is sort of a big opportunity to meet people they wouldn't otherwise get to meet which is it shocked me the first time i heard that right it makes sense their perspective but like boys i know not how i think about prison um sorry sorry to laugh no that's good i bet it's not how you think about it no it's not and laughing is all you can do sometimes you know there's there's no better alternative. They're good at chess.

That's one thing I learned. Like, you know, former armed robbers who don't speak English and, you know, probably didn't graduate middle school are, a surprising number of them are, like, fairly good at chess. Like, you know, not,

I'm not saying they're grandmasters, but, like, you know, I lose games to them all the time. I was not expecting that. Wow. So how is it, that's so interesting. How has that changed your views? Well, you know, I would say it's part of a larger whole, which, you know, it's one of the most sort of profound things that I've

come to learn over my life, but still something I don't fully understand, which is obviously, you know, what we call intelligence or IQ or whatever. It matters. It's important. Working hard matters. It's important. But there are other things, things that we don't have good words for. I still haven't found the right words for. But things that can make someone an unbelievably impressive and successful and productive person that seem to kind of outshine what I or others would expect of them. And obviously not everyone. You know, everyone's in different places. But, you know, something we saw was a lot at ftx we'd find someone with an absolutely shit resume i mean just nothing to recommend themselves no real relevant

experience and all of a sudden we'd realize they were outperforming almost everyone else at the company just because they had the grit they had the instincts you know they had the grit, they had the instincts, you know, they had the dedication, they knew how to work, how to interface with others, and how to see solutions to problems. Yeah, I mean, I've known on the flip side, a number of extremely stupid people have gotten rich in finance. They're clearly have a kind of brilliance that I can't see. Yeah. They seem like morons to me. I'm interested in what types there are. I was on Wall Street in a former life

and there are a variety of people there. So there's been a lot of talk about changes to the U.S. tax code, especially changes that affect cryptocurrency investing. What are those changes? Well, what if there was already a way to invest in the market with tax advantages? Well, iTrust Capital makes that possible. I Trust Capital

is a software platform that lets you invest in crypto using a self-directed IRA. That means with a traditional IRA, taxes are deferred. And with a Roth IRA, you won't have to pay taxes on your crypto gains, just like a retirement account. On top of that, the crypto market never closes. You can buy or sell 24-7 in case you stay up late. I Trust Capital makes investing easy, safe, and accessible. You don't have to be an expert. Their website has easy-to-understand articles, videos, and if you ever need help, you can speak with an actual person in the United States because the whole thing is based in the United States, the whole company.

So if you're looking to add crypto to your retirement portfolio, sign up today at itrustcapital.com slash Tucker and use the promo code Tucker for $100 funding bonus. No frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Remember in 2020 when CNN told you the George Floyd riots were mostly peaceful? Even as flames rose in the background? It was ridiculous, but it was also a metaphor

for the way our leaders run this country. They're constantly telling you, everything is fine. Everything is fine. Don't worry. Everything's under control. Nothing to see here. Move along and obey.

No one believes that. Crime is not going away. Supply chains remain fragile. It does feel like some kind of global conflict could break out at any time. So the question is, if things went south tomorrow, would you be ready? Well, if you're not certain that you'd be ready, you need Ammo Squared. Ammo Squared is the only service that lets you build an ammunition stockpile automatically. You literally set it on autopilot.

You pick the calibers you want, how much you want to save every month, then they'll ship it to you or they'll store it for you and ship it when you say so. You get 24-7 access to manage the whole thing. So don't let the people in charge, don't let CNN lull you into a fake sense of safety. Take control of your life, protect your family, be prepared. Go to AmmoSquared.com to learn more. So, I mean, big picture, without getting into like all the details of your case, but it does seem like you guys made a decision at your company to form political alliances through political donations, which is not singling you out. You're hardly the only businessman who's done that. It's actually kind of par now.

But you gave so much to Democrats that I kind of thought they would rescue you in the end. Where were all your friends in the Democratic Party? They usually keep their friends from going to jail. Tony Podesta never went to jail. Why did you? Oh, it's a really good question. Obviously, I can only guess what the answer to that. I can only speculate because I'm not in their minds.

But, you know, one fact that might be relevant is, you know, in 2020, I was my center left and I gave to Biden's campaign. I was optimistic to be a sort of solid center left president. I spent the next few years in D.C. a lot. I mean, made dozens of trips there and was really, really shocked by what I saw. Not not in a good direction from the administration. By late 2022, I was giving to Republicans privately as much as Democrats. And that started becoming known right around FTX's collapse. So I probably played a role. Why were you shocked? I know you spent a lot of time in

D.C. There are pictures of you with, you know, everything. You met everybody. What was shocking about it? Some of it was just more extreme versions of what I worried about. Crypto regulation is a good example. You know, I never thought that, frankly, the Democrats in general would be the party taking the lead on good financial regulation. But, you know, there were good and bad people in each party and a lot of thoughtful players. But Gensler's SEC was something out of a nightmare. I, you know, a company would go offer something to the United States. Gensler would sue them to the ground for not registering. So you go to Gensler

to register, say, hey, we'd love to register. Office says, what you want? What would you register as? And the SEC would say, well, there's nothing for you to register as. We don't have any ideas. And there's just no solution. They required licenses that they didn't know how to give. And every

company in crypto ran into this. They basically failed to register a single person ever. That was like one pretty disturbing thing that I saw. And, you know, go for it. So can I just ask you to explain a little bit there? It's obvious to non-experts like me that, you know, Gary Gensler is obviously corrupt. I mean, that was clear. But it was his motives were less clear like what was that what what was his goal it's a really good question

and again i'm not in his brain but here are some impressions i had um you know he i he really liked being in the center of things power everyone likes that uh not every most people he's no exception you know part of this is a turf forward he wanted his agency to get more power even if he didn't want to do anything with it except block industries uh you know why did he make everyone register with him while he loses power otherwise, even if he didn't know what to do with them? You know, he had, there are lots of stories about him, you know, being very politically ambitious and feeling like if he could, you know,

get on CNBC enough, make a big enough stink about things, raise his profile that, you know, maybe be treasury secretary, something like that in the future. I mean, he was remarkably successful. He became sort of one of the few faces of democratic financial regulation. Interesting. That sounds right to me. I mean, those sound like Washington-type goals. I've seen those before.

Right. It wasn't moral. It's not like he had like deeply rooted communist beliefs or anything like that. Right. No, no, I knew that. Right. No, no. It's not like or any beliefs, self-advancement. So when things started to go south and you were criminally charged or thought you might be criminally charged, you know, you've given so much money to the Democratic Party that I think it's pretty leaving aside moral judgment here. But it's pretty normal in business for the donor to call the person he's donating to and saying, hey, I'm in trouble. Can you help me? Did you call Schumer or any of the people you had supported and say, you know, hey, I need your help.

It's the Biden Justice Department. Help me. I didn't for multiple reasons. One was, you know, I didn't want to do something inappropriate. A second was I that many parts of it very quickly made their positions known and were running away as quickly as they could. You know, I had I had a good relationship, probably better with Republicans in D.C. as they could. You know, I had a good relationship, probably better with Republicans in D.C. as with Democrats by that point in time, although that

wasn't public. It wouldn't have been easy to see that from the outside. And at the end of the day, there's a long story here. It involves a law firm that took a pretty unusual and active role in the case.

But before I even gave up control of FTX before it was ever filed for bankruptcy, the DOJ had already made up its mind. And so there was, you didn't call in any favors or try to. No. Interesting. any favors or tried to no interesting um what what do you think of the future of crypto i mean obviously you're must have complicated feelings since you're in a crypto company you're in jail because of it um but you know a lot about the topic you sort of feel like things are moving very fast on crypto um do you think they're moving in a good direction i know it's sort of feel like things are moving very fast on crypto.

Do you think they're moving in a good direction? I know it's sort of weird to ask you this question, but I can't resist. No. Hopefully is what I would say. You know, you look at what the Trump administration said, you know, going into office. There are a lot of good things. There are a lot of things that, you know, were very different from the stance that the Biden administration took, that Gensler and the SEC took. Obviously, you know, the follow through is what matters. And that's the stage that we're at now, which is what will come of this. And, I mean, not surprisingly, like, changing the guard helps. But financial regulators, they they're big giant bureaucracies

in the federal government they're not used to changing overnight and they have been playing a really obstructive role for you know a decade in crypto you know the u.s it's 30 percent of the world's finance it's about five percent of the world's crypto and the., it's 30% of the world's finance. It's about 5% of the world's crypto. And the reason it's entirely regulatory, it's just the U.S. was unique in its difficulty to work with. So I think the big question is, will, you know, when rubber meets the road, like, will the administration do what needs to be done and figure out how to do it. I mean, I remember when the concept of crypto first arrived in the popular press and the whole idea was that this was a currency that could restore to the individual his freedom of commerce. I get to buy and sell things without the government controlling me and I could do it privately.

It would restore my privacy as well. And that obviously has never happened. It doesn't seem like it's ever going to happen, and I don't hear anybody say it anymore. And now it just seems like it's kind of another asset scam. Whatever happened to – I mean, these are broad-brush statements, but whatever happened to the privacy thing? It's a really good question, and there's sort of a related thing about the technology, right? Payments, remittances, like all the things that are not just an investment, but ways that crypto could actually be useful for the world. You know, they happen on longer timescales than investments do, basically.

You know, with what social media has become, you see bubbles, you know, grow and pop and grow and pop on a daily to monthly basis. Technology is built out on a decade basis. So, you know, right now, crypto is not quite at a point where it could become an everyday tool of, you know, a quarter of the world or something. The tech isn't there yet, but it's not that far away. And if, and this is an if, if the industry keeps making progress rather than getting distracted too much by market prices, then, you know, five, 10 years from now, you could imagine a world where all of a sudden it is the case that anyone can have a crypto wallet, you know, a billion people could use it each day with privacy, with security,

fast, cheap, international, all the things that, you know, that was promised and that absolutely are distracted from by the latest meme points. You think world governments would allow that? I mean, if you actually allowed the world's population to conduct financial transactions without the control of governments, then governments would collapse instantly, wouldn't they? Well, it's an interesting question. And there are a lot of degrees here about the level of oversight and control that a government has. You look at something like Bitcoin, and the wallets are anonymous, but there is a public ledger of every transfer that happens. So it is possible for governments to have some

level of knowledge without having control of it. That being said, not all the governments in the world view this the same and the united states government over the last 30 years has taken one view towards control of you know the not just the united states frankly but the world's monetary you know dealings and and and uh you see i mean a different viewpoint much more authoritarian but also much more insular in a lot of sort of dictatorships but half the world doesn't try to have nearly the level of government involvement in day-to-day financial transactions that the united states have so the people who built this country built it because they wanted freedom. One word, freedom. They wanted freedom from oppressors who forced them to buy overpriced tea, then blockaded them when they tried to dump it into the ocean.

How'd that work out? Well, we built America in response. So it's time to throw your big, overpriced wireless contract overboard to a new tea party. You don't have to pay $100 a month just to use a phone. Most people don't use that much in services, but they pay it anyway. Our cell phone company, Pure Talk, says no to those prices. With a qualifying plan, you can choose an iPhone 14 or a Samsung Galaxy for nothing, zero. Get premium service on America's most dependable 5G network. It only takes a minute to switch. We highly recommend it. No hassle, no gimmicks, just honest to goodness, wireless priced right. So you get your iPhone 14 or Samsung Galaxy for nothing, zero dollars with a qualifying

plan. Go to puretalk.com slash Tucker. Visit puretalk.com slash Tucker for details. America's wireless company. Breaking news. A brand new game is now live at Bet365. Introducing Prize Matcher, a daily game that's never ordinary. All you have to do is match as many tiles as you can, and the more you match, the better.

We also have top table games like our incredible Super Spin Roulette, Blackjack, and a huge selection of slots. So there you have it. How can you match that? Check out Prize Matcher and see why it's never ordinary at Bet365. Must be 19 or older, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you or someone you know has concerns about gambling, visit connexontario.ca. T's and Z's apply.

It's one of the saddest things about this country. The country's getting sicker. Despite all of our wealth and technology, Americans aren't doing well overall. Obesity, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, all kinds of horrible chronic illnesses, weird cancers are all on the rise. Probably a lot of reasons for this, but one of them definitely is Americans don't eat very well anymore. They're all on the rise. Probably a lot of reasons for this,

but one of them definitely is Americans don't eat very well anymore. They don't eat real food. Instead, they eat industrial substitutes, and it's not good. It's time for something new, and that's where masa chips come in. Masas decide to revive real food by creating snacks

how they used to be made, how they're supposed to be made. A masa chip has just three simple ingredients, not 117. Three. No seed oils, no artificial additives, just real delicious food. And I know this because we eat a ton of them in my house. And by the way, I feel great. So you can still continue to snack, but you can do it in a healthy way with chips without feeling guilty about it. Masa chips are delicious.

They taste how a tortilla chip is supposed to taste. But the thing is, you can hit them really, really hard, and I have, and not feel bloated or sluggish after. You feel like you've done something decent for your body. You don't feel like you got a head injury or you don't feel filled with guilt. You feel light and energetic. It's the kind of snack your grandparents ate. Worth bringing back. So you can go to mossachips.com, Moss is M-A-S-A, by the way, mossachips.com slash Tucker to start snacking, get 25% off. We enjoy them. You will too, company. Do you have any money left after all this? Well, basically, no. The company that I used to own, maybe I still do own, I don't know, it's in bankruptcy, had nothing intervened, today, it would have about $15 billion of liabilities and about $93 billion of assets. So the answer should be, in theory, yes, that there was enough money to pay everyone back in kind at the time or today with plenty of interest left over

and tens of billions left for investors. But that's not how things worked out and instead it all got boiled up in a again world in in a bankruptcy where i the assets were dissipated incredibly quickly by those controlling it. They're siphoned off tens of billions of dollars worth. And it's been a colossal disaster. And I mean, not solving that problem is by far the biggest regret of my life. So you knew everybody else in the crypto business. You're one of the most famous people in the business before the charges, before all of this happened. Being as honest as you can, do you think you were the biggest criminal in the crypto business? I don't think I was a criminal.

So certainly the answer to that is no. I mean, I think the DOJ thinks that I may have been, but I don't share their viewpoint. Well, yeah, you're in jail. They definitely, that's their claim anyway. But I wonder, and I'm not, you know, I've certainly criticized your business and other businesses like it in the past. And again, I'm not even getting into the details of your case because it's like Byzantine. But I'm just wondering, like, do you think there's a lot of shady behavior in the crypto business, you know, being honest?

Yeah. Ten years ago, the answer was clearly yes, or at least yes relative to the scale of the industry. You know, you look in the, you know, 2014 to 2017 sort of era, and there is not, you know, the industry is a lot smaller than it was today. And a lot of the transactions I saw, or at least a higher fraction of them, were, well, different people use different words for it, but Silk Road, you know, as an example, right? People purchasing narcotics online was a common use of crypto back 10 years ago or so. Obviously, there are always going to be criminals in any industry. But over time, the fraction of the industry that that represents has fallen off really substantially, both because of growth of other areas of interest in crypto and also because of more government involvement on the anti-money laundering side. So, yeah, there's still some, but it's not as prevalent as it once was.

So you were famously identified with a worldview and ideology, maybe even a religion called effective altruism. And the idea was that, as I understand it, that you, you described as like the greatest good for the greatest number and i wonder if all of this has made you rethink the precepts of effective altruism it hasn't made me rethink the precepts obviously i feel terrible about what happened it's not at all what i intended and whatever one's intentions are, if you screw up, then the results might be different. People got their money back at the end,

but it was two excruciating years waiting for it. They got it back dollarized rather than in kind. And certainly all the good that I've been hoping to do for the world ended up dissipating, or at least most of it did, when the company collapsed. I guess what I'm saying is, do – I mean, I think it's hard for most people to understand the idea that it's more virtuous or valuable to help people they've never met than it is to help the people right in front of them. In other words, like it's way more virtuous to help your wife, girlfriend, mother, daughter, brother, college roommate than it is to help like a village in a country you've never visited. I think that's how most people feel intuitively.

But you disagree. I disagree, although there is a caveat to it, which is that a classic mistake which people make, and I may have made at some points, is with people who you don't know who are distant from you, thinking you know there's so many foreign aid type projects that have gone awry ended up being complete wastes of money because no one knew the people they were giving to no one knew what their lives were like and right they're just guessing it with those people it's wrong and you know they show up with like a bunch of water pumps to a veggie village that has plenty of water and no food and like you know, people shipped in from Harvard to go hand out these water pumps no one wants. And, you know, there's like example after example of this going around. Whereas obviously, like when you're dealing with people you know, you know, you have much better sense of how to help them. And that's real. Like that effect is absolutely real. And, you know,

even if I think the life matters as much in one place as another, that doesn't mean that you know as well how to help one as you do the other. Well, see, I think you're sort of making a counter case. You're arguing against your own position. I mean, isn't it? I mean, I guess the problem I have with effective altruism is just too easy. I mean, it's like it's easy to cure polio. It's really hard to make the same woman happy for 30 years. And so maybe it's better to do

the hard thing. Well, I think what I'd say is look, you look at, I mean, malaria is a good example here, right? No one dies of malaria anymore in the United States. I mean, basically no one does. But globally it's what, like a million people a year or something die of it. And that's

horrible that it happens. This is just a disease people shouldn't be dying from anymore. We know how to basically eradicate it. And that's horrible that it happens. Like, this is just a disease people shouldn't be dying from anymore. We know how to basically eradicate it. And we should absolutely be doing that as a world. But, you know, because it's sort of like easy in some sense, that shouldn't stop us from being able to help people, you know, at home. You look at, like, the scale of resources that would be required to many of these, you know, interventions in the poorest part of the world, and it's not that big. It's not making – it would not take a big bite out of our domestic health if it were done efficiently. But the efficient part is a big piece of this.

You can throw as many useless water pumps at villages without food as you want without curing anyone no i think i mean you make a i mean that's demonstrably true and 60 years of aid to africa has shown that as life expectancy has declined but um i guess as a moral matter how can you justify worrying about malaria when your cousin is addicted to xanax shouldn't you fix that that first? If I could, but, you know, at the end of the day, we have responsibilities to each of us. And, you know, if I know my cousin well and I know how to solve his problem

because I'm his cousin, then absolutely, like, I have a responsibility to do that. But if I've tried and I'm flailing at that, I can't figure out how to make progress, but I can figure out how to save lives internationally. Or if someone can, then I don't think it takes away from the good

that they can do internationally that they couldn't figure out how to solve their cousin's problem. Right. So do what you can. I don't think that's a crazy point. Last question on this topic. Can you think of a big recent international aid project that was an unequivocal

success? So, sort of, but I'm not going to name the, it's not going to be a government aid project, to be clear. They're private projects that happen. Right. You know, actually, the malaria is a good example where a substantial fraction of the world's malaria has been cut down already by mostly private contributions from people to South Saharan Africa and India. That, you know, saving probably hundreds of thousands of lives a year right now for, you know, thousands of dollars per life on average, which is, you know, sort of a stunning success on a relative scale. Now, we're not talking about a trillion dollars. We're talking about single-digit billions of dollars directed by really careful work by philanthropists. And, you know, of course, you can look at gigantic government programs that did absolutely nothing. You know, if you want to go the government approach, I mean, I don't know, the Marshall Plan,

like, that's sort of digging pretty deep in history, but rebuilding Germany after World War II was probably a huge success on many fronts. Yeah, I think we've undone it by blowing up Nord Stream, but yeah, no, I think it's a fair point. So how old are you now? Time changes when you're in prison. It becomes sort of an amorphous concept when every day is sort of like the last and they just blur together. The answer is, well, I guess my birthday is tomorrow. So as of right now, I am 32, but I will be 33 soon. How are you going to celebrate your birthday? I'm 32, but I will be 33 soon.

How are you going to celebrate your birthday? I'm not. I was never big on birthdays on the outside. And celebrating another year in prison just doesn't feel like all that exciting to me. So you're not going to tell Diddy it's your birthday tomorrow? I don't believe you. Someone else might tell him, but I don't plan to. So, okay, so you'll be 33 tomorrow.

If you are not pardoned, all things being equal, how old will you be when you get out? It's a complicated calculation, which I don't understand all the details of because of, like, first step back stuff. And if you just add, you know, my prison sentence, my age, so to speak, you know, then the answer is in my late 40s. Wow. Could you handle that? Sorry, what I said was wrong. I misspoke. If you add my prison

sentence, my age, the late 50s, if you include all of the possible decreases, it might be the late 40s. But the raw answer is, I mean, it's 32 when I was convicted, and I got a 25-year sentence, so that's 57. So having done two out of the 25 so far, do you think you could – could you make it? It's a good question. I'm not sure. I mean, the hardest thing is just not having something meaningful to be doing in here. And, you know, and you can look at their studies. I have no idea how good they are, but they show, you know, you age at roughly three times the normal rate in prison. So, you know, you have three times 25 to my 32 years when I was convicted. And, you know, that gets you an answer of maybe. So, I mean, it strikes me there's a kind of weird, it's, I mean, you went maybe more than anyone I've ever talked to from one world to a completely different world. So you were in the

world of digital money. Now you're in a world with no money oh what's the medium of exchange in prison uh you know it's whatever people have and you know muffins like these little so like little plastic wrapped you like you go to like a like a gas station and like on the counter there might be like a plastic bowl with little individually wrapped plastic muffins that have been sitting there for a week at room temperature you know imagine one of those that's sort of that that's like standard is that a packet of ramen soup or a kind of disgusting looking little foil package of fish in oil at room temperature oh yeah you went you went from crypto to the muffin economy. Yeah, that's right.

How would you compare them? Obviously, it's harder to move muffins internationally, but as a currency. I don't think there's going to be a strategic muffin reserve. So, you know, they're a currency of need. They wouldn't be anything else. They don't have that much to recommend themselves. But at the end of the day, they're kind of fungible. They're not exactly fungible, but they're close enough.

Two muffins are kind of similar, so you can kind of trade them for each other. They kind of work as long as you're never dealing with more than, like, $5. Right? Because if you wanted to do a 200 transaction in muffins like what you know like the i mean it doesn't work physically right and it's unwieldy yeah it's unwieldy and so one of the things that like you realize really quickly is i mean the scale of everything is so diminished in prison, you see people

getting into a fistfight over a single banana. Not because they even care about it that much, but because what else is there to channel your caring into? Ooh, that's grim.

Do you eat the muffins, by the way? I don't eat them. No, I just hoard them. I don't actually eat them. I mostly eat rice and beans and ramen. Wow. Well, it looks like it's been good for you. Have you gotten any tattoos? I have not. I know some people who have, but I have not gotten any prison tattoos. Have you thought about it? There's a part of me that's always like thought about getting a tattoo, but talking with the inmates about their, you know, sanitization procedures or lack thereof for the needles sort of, you know, that cured that idea in my mind.

Not no, no interest anymore. It's not worth the hep C. It's not worth the hep c it's not worth the hep c it's you know i would say like maybe they go through like four people or so before bothering to sanitize a needle oh yeah oh okay so you're not you're not doing that so since since you've been away and you're facing i guess 23 more years. I always wonder, like the people you helped, I mean, you're in prison because you hurt people, but you also helped a lot of people in Washington by giving them many, many millions of dollars.

Did any of them call you to say, you know, good luck, I hope you're doing okay, don't join a gang or say anything to you at all? Right when the collapse hit, like in the immediate wake of it, I got a number of really nice messages from a lot of people, including some in D.C. By six months later, none. And so by the time trial happened, whereas, you know, put in prison, nothing. And it's it became too politically toxic.

It became the incentives were too skewed against people. You know, risking their next. I even heard, frankly, about people saying third hand, like nice things about me, but no one wanted to be in contact with me directly. Did anyone contact you? I mean, I noticed that you're I thought it was your girlfriend testified against you. Like, did you have any friends who stayed loyal and supported you and continue to? Barely. Yes, but very, very few.

I was surprised. It makes sense in retrospect. Anyone who was close to me ended up with a gun to their head, you know, being told that they had two options and one of them involved decades in prison. And I mean, I think Ryan Salem is sort of

the saddest example of that and the most disgusting example from the government's perspective where, you know, they charged him of totally bogus crimes. He said, no, I'll see you in court. So they went back and said, all right, well, how about your pregnant wife? What if we put her in prison? And so he pleads guilty because they're going to put his wife in prison, which no sane legal system would make that a permissible thing for a prosecution to do. And then, and he wasn't even charged with most of what the other people who pled guilty were charged with. You know, Ryan, he doesn't testify at trial because he doesn't want to lie. He doesn't want to say what the government wants him to say.

And he ends up getting four times as much prison time as the other three guilty pleas combined. And, like, he couldn't send a clear message. Is it because he was a Republican or is it because he refused to power the government's lies at trial? Like those are the only things I can imagine why they give him seven and a half years in prison. It's disgusting. And I had him in my house and I interviewed him and I think they charged his

wife as well. It's totally immoral what they did. Totally. They went back on their promise and in charge his wife anyway, it's totally immoral what they did totally right they went back on their promise and in charge his wife anyway like you know just just to sort of disabuse any notion of them sort of like operating in good faith it's it's disgusting he's he's a good guy i you know he didn't serve any of that has it dawned on you you know i don't know what kind of news coverage you're getting

kind of contact you have with the outside world sounds like not too much but that things are moving so quickly out here by the time you get out i mean ai for example it sounds like we're reaching uh agi or some yeah something singularity uh soon. That you may emerge whenever you do into a world that doesn't look anything like the world you left. Yeah. I feel it pretty acutely. And it's, you know, the sort of feeling of the world moving on without you. Ugh. Is having children part of your effective altruism philosophy? Obviously, I couldn't be a father in the same way to all of them, but I felt responsible for them. I mean, I feel terrible about all their work being tossed down the drain. But I didn't have time for my personal life at all, basically, when I was running FTX. And I mean, I certainly am not in a position to have kids in prison.

Have any of those 300 employees visited you in jail? And I mean, I certainly am not in a position to have kids from in prison. Have any of those 300 employees visited you in jail? No, I think the answer is no to that. You know, there's one or two. Probably ought to have some real kids at some point, don't you think? Because they when things go bad, they stick around. You know, it's got me thinking about what it means to have real friends. And about the amount of power that some systems in our country end up

having and the amount of intimidation that can be achieved implicitly. But also about having people I know I can count on. Yeah. Other people are all that matter. Sam Bankman Freed. I, I, I'm grateful that you did this and probably the only interview you ever do where you don't get pressed on your business. Cause there are other people to do that, but I was glad to talk to you. And I hope you'll give our best to Diddy.

I will absolutely do that. I can't believe you're in jail with Diddy. You know, if someone told me three years ago, like you'll be hanging out with Diddy, you know, every day, I'd be like, oh, that's interesting. I wonder how that's going to happen. I guess he gets into crypto or something. Oh, life is so weird. Godspeed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. We want to thank you for watching us on spotify a company that we use every day we know the people who run it good people while you're here do us a favor hit follow and tap the bell so you never miss an episode we have real conversations news things that actually matter telling the truth always you

will not miss it if you follow us on spotify and hit the bell we appreciate thanks for watching