Caroline Ellison made $6 million at Alameda – a fraction of Sam Bankman-Fried's $2.2 billion's haul

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Caroline Ellison made $6 million at Alameda – a fraction of Sam Bankman-Fried's $2.2 billion's haul
Caroline Ellison.Tyler Le, Jenny Chang-Rodriguez/Insider
  • Caroline Ellison received $6 million by Alameda, according to court documents filed Wednesday.
  • Ellison, who was the only female executive, received about 75% less than her male counterparts.
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Caroline Ellison, the former Alameda CEO who has pleaded guilty to seven criminal charges, received $6 million from the crypto-trading firm – a fraction of the billions paid to Sam Bankman-Fried, court filings reviewed by Insider show.

Alameda Research has been accused of using customer deposits from Bankman-Fried's crypto exchange FTX for daily operations, including risky investments. FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on November 11 after it imploded, wiping out billions in customer deposits.

Ellison, the company's only female executive, received about 75% less in payments than her male counterparts.

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Bankman-Fried, who resigned as FTX CEO amid the bankruptcy, transferred a total of $2.2 billion to his personal account, while $587 million went to Nishad Singh, FTX's former director of engineering, and $246 million went to Zixiao "Gary" Wang, Bankman-Fried's cofounder.

Ryan Salame, who invested $6 million in restaurants and real estate in a small Massachusetts town sparking concerns among local officials per the Berkshire Eagle, received $87 million, lawyers said.

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While Bankman-Fried was known for being the Democrats' second-top donor ahead of the 2022 midterms, Salame and Singh also donated millions. But a criminal indictment unsealed last month said that Singh and Salame's donations were actually Bankman-Fried's doing.

Bankman-Fried did not want to be known as partisan, so he instructed the two executives instead to donate money to certain candidates and political organizations, prosecutors wrote in the filing.

Some $25 million also went to John Samuel Trabucco, Ellison's co-CEO. Before stepping down last August, Trabucco bought property worth $10 million in cash, as well as a 52-foot yacht. Court documents filed Wednesday show he transferred $2.5 million from Alameda to American Yacht Group in March 2022, with the cited reason "for the benefit of John Samuel Trabucco."

Bankman-Fried's dad, Joseph Bankman, also received a little over $1 million in cash payments plus a $41,665 salary from West Realm Shires Services, the company behind FTX US, the documents show.

But Ellison's income is more comparable to that of Bankman than to any of her fellow executives' tens or hundreds of millions.

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Following her guilty plea, Ellison apologized for her role in defrauding customers and investors, telling a judge she "knew it was wrong."

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