Sam Bankman-Fried thought messy hair was key to his success, Caroline Ellison claims

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s brown frizzy hair, cargo shorts, and untucked T-shirt were all part of a carefully crafted image he curated to make himself look more like an effective altruist and less like a billionaire braggart, his one-time girlfriend Caroline Ellison testified in court on Wednesday.

Bankman-Fried, who debuted on the Forbes billionaires list in 2021 and was estimated to be worth $26 billion, also ditched his luxury car in favor of a Toyota Corolla and set up a Twitter account in an effort to make himself seem more down-to-earth.

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“He thought his hair was very valuable,” Ellison, the former CEO at Alameda Research, said, adding that Bankman-Fried claimed he’d gotten bigger bonuses while working at the Wall Street trading firm Jane Street because of his hair and felt the unkempt look was “essential to his image.”

(Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Ellison spent all of Wednesday and part of Tuesday testifying against her one-time boss.

The duo, along with several other high-ranking officials at Alameda Research, a crypto hedge fund Bankman-Fried owned but Ellison ran, and FTX, the cryptocurrency exchange he founded, are accused of stealing billions of dollars from customers.

When he showed up for his trial, Bankman-Fried had a very different look than the messy mop he had sported for so many years. A fellow inmate at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center had given the crypto titan a haircut, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the case. Bankman-Fried also ditched the shorts and showed up in a dark suit that was purportedly purchased at Macy’s.

(Eduardo Munoz Alvarez/AP)

The 31-year-old is accused of orchestrating one of the biggest frauds in U.S. history by illegally diverting billions of dollars from client accounts for his personal use, which included making risky trades at his cryptocurrency hedge fund.

In order to beat the federal charges against him, his defense attorneys will have to make jurors believe he acted in good faith and got caught up in the largely unregulated world of cryptocurrencies. The prosecution is trying to convince them that Bankman-Fried is a criminal mastermind who stole billions to make himself, his family, and his close friends wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.

Prosecutors alleged Bankman-Fried ran his con from 2019 to November 2022, when FTX collapsed. He has denied the allegations.

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Four of his company’s top lieutenants have pleaded guilty to similar charges. Three, including Ellison, have made deals with prosecutors to testify against him.

Bankman-Fried is facing seven criminal charges, including money laundering and securities fraud. If he is convicted on all of the charges against him, the 31-year-old could be looking at a life sentence.