FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has a right to shape the narrative around him, his lawyers argued during a court hearing last month. Unposted tweets obtained by CoinDesk suggest he may have been trying to craft a new image for himself since as soon as last December by discussing his mental health and prescribed medication.
“Things are a spectrum,” Bankman-Fried wrote before his arrest last year on fraud and conspiracy charges. ”I don’t have major depressive disorder, probably. But I do generally test positive for dysthymia [a form of mild, long-term depression], and anhedonia [the inability to feel pleasure]. My lows aren’t unusually low – but I generally don’t have highs.”
Last week, highlights from 250 pages of similar draft tweets were published by the New York Times after being leaked by social media personality and Bankman-Fried confidante Tiffany Fong. CoinDesk viewed the tweet thread entitled “EmSam” in December prior to his arrest, and Fong reportedly received the trove of writings the following month.
With one million followers, Bankman-Fried was a prolific and compulsive poster on Twitter, now known as X. But the unposted tweets show him describing his thoughts with influencers as he faces fraud charges related to FTX’s collapse. By March, the social media platform was not among the approved websites Bankman-Fried was permitted to access while confined in his parents' home in Stanford, California.
“According to Twitter, it’s because, uh, something about veganism or gambling or addiction or sex. EmSam helps, a bit. It helps me stay focused, and organized.”
The Federal District Court in Manhattan revoked Bankman-Fried’s bail and sent him to jail in August after deciding he was interfering with trial witnesses, in part by sending documents to the media. Prosecutors argued that Bankman-Fried sent diary excerpts written by Caroline Ellison, a key witness and executive within the FTX empire whom he once dated, to reporters in an attempt to intimidate her by casting her in a negative light. Bankman-Fried’s attorneys are disputing a temporary gag order barring him from speaking to the media.
Bankman-Fried said he first realized something was awry with his mental health during high school. “I’d already lived for 16 years. And somehow, never during those years had I really asked myself what made me happy. Nothing does… And at the end of the day I don’t really know what ‘happiness’ means. None of us really do. But the thing everyone describes–it’s not a thing I feel,” he writes.
Linking to a WebMD article, Bankman-Fried explained over the past decade he’s been prescribed an antidepressant called EmSam to balance his mental health. As a vocal proponent of EmSam, the former FTX CEO hired a psychiatrist as a company coach who prescribed the medication and who “witnesses have described as liberally dispensing prescriptions to FTX employees,” according to Department of Justice attorneys. Amid FTX’s downfall, speculation heightened on Bankman-Friend’s use of EmSam.