New FTX CEO John Ray Is Making $1,300 an Hour to Clean up SBF’s Mess

• New FTX CEO John Ray is making $1,300 an hour to oversee the firm’s bankruptcy, according to filings.
• The restructuring exec reportedly billed 156 hours in a two-month span in a previous bankruptcy case, raking in $120,582. 
• Ray accused the defunct exchange of “old-fashioned embezzlement” in his congressional testimony.

FTX’s new chief executive officer John Ray is making $1,300 an hour working on the bankruptcy and restructuring of the failed cryptocurrency exchange, according to court filings. 

After FTX filed for bankruptcy protection and reportedly lost $8 billion of customer money in early November, Ray replaced disgraced founder Sam Bankman-Fried as CEO. The veteran restructuring executive has helped oversee insolvencies at several large companies, including defunct energy giant Enron and telecom company Nortel.

“I’ve just never seen anything like it in all 40 years of doing restructuring work and corporate legal work,” he said of FTX in a congressional testimony on Tuesday, accusing the exchange of “old-fashioned embezzlement.”

When Ray led Enron through its restructuring process as chairman and CEO almost two decades ago, he collected roughly $1.2 million on an annualized basis. In another instance, he reportedly billed 156 hours in a two-month span during a bankruptcy case, netting $120,582 in that time, according to CNBC.

Ray slammed former FTX execs, adding that the exchange was run by “very small group of grossly inexperienced and unsophisticated individuals who failed to implement virtually any of the systems or controls necessary for a company that is entrusted with other people’s money or assets.”

It could take months to secure all the company’s assets following its downfall, Ray said. And in terms of repaying creditors, that could take much longer. Enron’s proceedings, for example, carried on for over a decade.

“We’ve been able to secure over $1 billion of assets to cold wallets in a secure location,” Ray said. “It’s an ongoing process. [It] will take weeks if not months to secure all the assets.”