However, an interviewer asked the former head of FTX, Sam Bankman-Fried, also known as SBF, why there was no more Bitcoin for customers to withdraw, and suggested it was because the Bitcoin did not actually exist as SBF was just letting customers buy notional or imaginary tokens rather than Bitcoin. SBF responded by saying, "I believe that what you're saying is part of what happened."

Ukraine used FTX to send money to the Democrat party. SBF reportedly donated $40 million to Democrats in the midterm elections. Elon Musk tweeted, "SBF donated $40m to not go to jail for stealing $10b+ is one of the highest ROI trades of all time". Musk then wrote that SBF's actual support of the Democrat elections was probably over $1 billion and he asked where that money went.