Monday 21 November 2022 06:05 PM New FTX CEO who has been brought in to clean up the company's wreck for $1,300 ... trends now
The new CEO of FTX is being paid a whopping $1,300 per hour to clean up the collapsed cryptocurrency firm.
John Ray III took over the bankrupt firm on November 11 after founder Sam Bankman-Fried stepped down amid losing billions of dollars.
While FTX is bankrupt, paying top employees high salaries appears to be the only way to save the company after Bankman-Fried supposedly lent and lost billions in clients' money to Alameda Research without their knowledge or permission.
In addition to Ray's hefty wage, the company is also paying Kathryn Schultea, chief administrative officer, and Raj Perubhatla, chief information officer, $975 per hour, according to court documents obtained by Fortune.
FTX has also hired contractors to make sure the company is running ethically for more than $50,000 per month.
Company lawyer Edgar Mosley said that paying employees 'is necessary for the preservation of the resources and value' of FTX.
'Without it, I believe that even more employees may seek alternative employment opportunities... likely, diminishing, stakeholder confidence in the Debtors' ability to successfully reorganize,' Mosley said, according to the news outlet.
FTX is bankrupt but is still paying key employees top dollar as the company tries to fix the mistakes made by founder Sam Bankman-Fried
John Ray III took over as FTX's CEO for $1,300 per hour on November 11 as he attempts to clean up the collapsed cryptocurrency company. Pictured: the FTX arena
CEO Ray, who has 40 years experience dealing with collapsed firms including Enron, filed bankruptcy documentation on Thursday laying bare the scale of the disfunction.
'Never in my career have I seen such a complete failure of corporate controls and such a complete absence of trustworthy financial information as occurred here,' Ray said.
'From compromised systems integrity and faulty regulatory oversight abroad, to the concentration of control in the hands of a very small group of inexperienced, unsophisticated and potentially compromised individuals, this situation is unprecedented.'
Bankman-Fried was recently estimated to be worth $23 billion. His net worth has all but evaporated, according to Forbes and Bloomberg.
Ray, in the bankruptcy filing, said he had never seen such chaos and incompetence
Ray explained why he had been brought in, and said his history of dealing with mismanagement had not prepared him for the shambles at FTX.
'I have over 40 years of legal and restructuring experience,' he said.
'I have been the Chief Restructuring
