When scrolling through job updates, career advice and celebratory announcement posts that flood LinkedIn feeds, it isn’t often one finds a break in corporate language for a new position: prison inmate.
Former co-CEO of crypotocurrency disaster FTX Ryan Salame, of Potomac, Maryland, decided to take to the career-oriented social media platform Thursday to announce his “new position” as a prison inmate at Federal Correctional Institution Cumberland, Salame shared the post with more than 500 connections and over 10,000 followers.
The announcement reads , “I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Inmate at FCI Cumberland!” with a standard LinkedIn graphic of people jumping in celebration around a cupcake, cutting through the usual polished posts on the platform. The post has garnered over 12,000 reactions, nearly 2,000 comments and almost 1,000 reposts.
The former cryptocurrency executive was sentenced to 7-and-a-half years in prison on May 28 after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and defraud the Federal Election Commission, and conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money-transmitting business.
Salame also faces three years of supervised release and must pay more than $6 million in forfeiture and over $5 million in restitution, according to a news release announcing his sentence.
Salame then took to the social media platform X posting “Today I learned people still use LinkedIn.” In his profile picture on X , he’s wearing a striped prisoner costume with a fake beard and sunglasses. His bio reads “7.5 year prison sentence” and goes on to include “Former: Free man, US Republican Mega-donor, CEO of FTX Digital Markets, Circle Trade, CPA.”
Salame was a high-ranking official at Samuel Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency trading firm Alameda Research for two years before becoming the co-CEO of the Bahamian affiliate of Bankman-Fried’s cryptocurrency exchange FTX.
Salame, Bankman-Fried and employees of Alameda Research and FTX conspired to illegally transmit the funds of FTX customers without a license, according to a release from U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams.
“Salame’s involvement in two serious federal crimes undermined public trust in American elections and the integrity of the financial system. Today’s sentence underscores the substantial consequences for such offenses,” Williams said.
Starting around 2020, Salame and Bankman-Fried, conspiring with another FTX executive, made a total of more than 300 unlawful political donations that led to false information being reported to the Federal Election Commission, the release said.
Bankman-Fried was eventually sentenced to 25 years in prison for his role in several fraud schemes.
“These donations were made to improve Bankman-Fried’s personal standing in Washington, D.C., increase FTX’s profile, and curry favor with candidates that could help pass legislation favorable to FTX, Alameda, or Bankman-Fried’s personal agenda,” the release said.
Salame will serve his sentence in FCI Cumberland, a medium-security federal prison for men, located in Western Maryland.
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