In a text message to Reuters on November 12, Bankman-Fried, who also owns SBF, said he was still in the Bahamas. When Reuters asked him specifically if he had flown to Argentina, as rumored, he replied: “No.” Users took to Twitter over the weekend to speculate whether SBF was on the run following the Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing for FTX Group, which includes a number of companies including FTX Trading, FTX US and Alameda Research. The rumors started after users tracked the coordinates of his private jet using the flight tracking website ADS-B Exchange. The tracker suggested that SBF’s Gulfstream G450 had landed in Buenos Aires on a direct flight from Nassau, Bahamas in the early hours of November 12. Rumor is SBF en route to Argentina.. pic.twitter.com/Jnxm3bprm9 — CoinMamba (@coinmamba) November 12, 2022 Bankman-Fried lives in a luxury penthouse in Nassau that is reportedly shared by several roommates, including Caroline Ellison, the managing director of Alameda Research. Just landed Sam Bankman-Fried @SBF_FTX Private Jet in Buenos Aires Argentina LVKEB on #FTX run pic.twitter.com/DD4Gy9nguk — 0xMeTaNeeR (@0xMetaNeeR) November 12, 2022 Once considered the poster child for crypto’s exponential growth, SBF is now at the center of the industry’s biggest scandal. In less than a week, FTX went from being one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world with a valuation of around $32 billion to a bankrupt company with an $8 billion hole in its balance sheet. According to Bloomberg, SBF’s net worth dropped from $16 billion to zero after the collapse of FTX. FTX has raised billions in venture capital in recent years, touting backers including Lightspeed Venture Partners, Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, Circle Internet Financial, Coinbase Ventures, Multicoin Capital, Paul Tudor Jones and Sequoia Capital.
