Ex-CEO trolled after shocking new LinkedIn job update: ‘I hear the uniforms are free’

Ryan Salame was living the high life just a couple of years ago but his LinkedIn update this week shows he’s hit rock bottom.

Ryan Salame has a new job title. Picture: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images

For the first decade of Ryan Salame’s working life, he was on a meteoric rise.

From senior tax accountant, to trader and then co-CEO - all before the age of 30.

But on Friday thousands of people on LinkedIn were stunned to see his latest job update.

“I’m happy to share I’m starting a new position,” Salame wrote. “As inmate at FCI Cumberland.”

Ryan Salame's update on LinkedIn.

Salame added his job skills as “cleaning” and “whittling”.

If you’re unfamiliar with his name, Salame was FTX cryptocurrency fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s top lieutenant.

He served as co-CEO of FTX Digital Markets but begins a seven-and-a-half year prison term today for making tens of millions of dollars in unlawful campaign donations to support Bankman-Fried’s political machinations.

LinkedIn users couldn’t help trolling after learning of his new reality.

“Congratulations! I hear the work uniforms are free too so win-win!” one wrote.

“Couldn’t negotiate remote huh?” added another.

“From block chain to locked chain,” chimed in a third.

A fourth wrote: “Don’t forget to update us when you are promoted to Senior Inmate.”

Ryan Salame has a new job title. Picture: Stephanie Keith/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Once among the world’s top crypto exchanges, FTX collapsed in November 2022 after news surfaced that Bankman-Fried took customer money to pay off risky bets made by his hedge fund, Alameda Research.

Bankman-Fried was sentenced in March to 25 years in prison for stealing from FTX customers, and he has appealed his conviction.

Salame didn’t co-operate in the federal trial against Bankman-Fried, though he did provide nearly 600,000 pages of documents to authorities.

He had notably tipped off authorities in November 2022 that FTX customer funds were being secretly transferred to “cover financial losses” at Bankman-Fried’s trading firm Alameda Research.

Sam Bankman-Fried. (Photo by ANGELA WEISS / AFP)

Nonetheless, Salame received a prison term that was harsher than the sentence sought by prosecutors after pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to make unlawful political contributions and one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business.

He was also forced to forfeit more than $1.5 billion as part of the plea deal, though prosecutors agreed to except $6 million, two Massachusetts properties and a 2021 Porsche to satisfy the terms.

FCI Cumberland is a medium-security federal prison for male offenders in Maryland “with an adjacent minimum security satellite camp,” according to its website.

It has a total of 1001 inmates across the two sites.

- with the New York Post