Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
- Sam Bankman-Fried hobnobbed, worked, and traveled in style in FTX's prime, Bloomberg reported.
- Photos show him with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, playing the odd sport, and reclining in a jet.
- His Bahamas penthouse decor included a self-playing piano and a backpack slumped on the floor.
The Sam Bankman-Fried once celebrated by investors and honored on the Forbes 30 under 30 list lived well.
A new collection of photos published by Bloomberg shows the one-time billionaire seemingly in his element. The splashy spread highlights the cavernous interiors of Bankman-Fried's Bahamas penthouse that was home to he and others in the FTX orbit, and other luxurious real estate that had been part of their scene of work and social events.
The photos exude an atmosphere of sweeping ocean views, fountain-like trees and lush greenery throughout, and the odd pool, according to Bloomberg's pictures. The publication did not indicate where it got the photos.
A representative for Bankman-Fried declined to comment.
The lifestyle it portrays certainly seems a far cry from trying to play video games at his parents' place in Palo Alto, California, where Bankman-Fried is on house arrest while awaiting his trial scheduled for October.
After FTX's bankruptcy in November, federal prosecutors in New York worked fast to level wire fraud and various conspiracy charges over the failure of the crypto exchange, and to extradite Bankman-Fried from the Bahamas. Bankman-Fried has since pleaded not guilty.
Before all that, he was apparently drinking out of gleaming chalices, working in an open office at desks with massive multiple-monitor setups, and playing a game Bloomberg described as "a mix between tennis and squash."
The photos also show a somewhat comically jarring mish-mash in aesthetics that had perhaps come to symbolize the nouveau riche of crypto.
One moment Bankman-Fried is resting in the plush seat of a leather chair, and in another, he's in an office where desks are piled with messy heaps of random objects like water bottles, health supplements, jars of honey, large envelopes, and other sundry office accessories of tech startups.
Read the full Bloomberg essay.