Sam Bankman-Fried says filing for bankruptcy at FTX was his 'biggest' mistake and the people now running the company are 'trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame'

• Sam Bankman-Fried has said his "biggest single" mistake at FTX was filing for bankruptcy.
• He made the comment in an interview with Vox but said later the conversation wasn't meant to be published.

FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has said the "biggest" mistake he made while his crypto exchange collapsed around him was filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

In a Twitter DM conversation with Vox reporter Kelsey Piper, Bankman-Fried said he'd "fucked up," "big," "multiple times."

"You know what was maybe my single biggest fuckup?" Bankman-Fried said. "The one thing *everyone* told me to do."

He said later he was referring to "chapter 11."

FTX and its affiliates declared bankruptcy last week in the wake of the exchange's spectacular implosion, shortly after Bankman-Fried stepped down as CEO. He was replaced in the role by John Ray, a lawyer who oversaw the unwinding of Enron.

Bankman-Fried suggested to Vox that "everything would be ~70% fixed right now" if FTX hadn't filed for bankruptcy.

"If I hadn't done that, withdrawals would be opening up and in a month with customers fully whole," he said. "But instead I filed, and the people in charge of it are trying to burn it all to the ground out of shame."

He said that raising $8 billion to make account holders whole was his number one priority and "basically all that matters for the rest of my life."

Bankman-Fried said later on Twitter that his conversation with Vox was not meant to be public.

Representatives for FTX didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment. Ray said in a statement Wednesday evening that Bankman-Fried no longer spoke for the company.

FTX has been accused of misusing customer funds to prop up another company owned by Bankman-Fried, the trading firm Alameda Research. Bankman-Fried is facing investigations in the US and the Bahamas, where FTX is headquartered.