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The Salame Witch Trial

Will S.B.F.’s former lieutenant finally succumb to the feds’ relentless pressure to flip? Or have tales of his demise been greatly exaggerated?

For Ryan Salame to flip on Sam Bankman-Fried would suggest, symbolically at least, that his goose is cooked.
For Ryan Salame to flip on Sam Bankman-Fried would suggest, symbolically at least, that his goose is cooked. Photo: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Theodore Schleifer
August 16, 2023

Last September, when FTX was still a multi-billion dollar company, and Ryan Salame was still one of its flashy young executives, the emerging G.O.P. mega-donor decided to arrange a dinner in Washington, D.C. with another Republican on a similarly limitless upward trajectory: the powerful political consultant Jeff Roe. Both Salame and Roe brought their own entourages to the Capital Grille: Among them, Gabe Bankman-Fried, the brother of Salame’s soon-to-be-indicted boss; David Polyansky, one of Roe’s top operatives, who is now steering Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign; and Tyler Deaton, then Salame’s empowered donor-advisor.