The FTX saga has taken a new turn following the guilty plea of the company’s co-founder Gary Wang and former Alameda Research co-CEO Caroline Ellison.

U.S. Attorney Damian Williams announced in a message on Wednesday that the duo pleaded guilty to federal charges in the Southern District of New York, opening a swift path for federal prosecutors to round off the FTX case.

https://twitter.com/SDNYnews/status/1605745361842327552?s=20&t=S7ikH1sz13Na95-e8rbqjA

Wang and Ellison were indicted following the sudden collapse of FTX, a popular cryptocurrency exchange holding billions of dollars in investors’ funds. At the center of the fraud allegations that led to the implosion of the company is the co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, who was arrested about two weeks ago after weeks of investigation by the U.S. authorities.

Bankman-Fried has been charged with eight counts of criminal offenses by the same prosecutors who Wang and Ellison made their plea to. Wang and Ellison’s plea was signed into agreement on Monday.

Wang pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. Ellison pleaded guilty to two counts of wire fraud, two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to commit commodities fraud, conspiracy to commit securities fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Their guilty plea now makes things more difficult for Bankman-Fried, who has maintained that he committed no fraud while he was the CEO of FTX. He has blamed the company’s collapse on ignorance and oversight.

Following his arrest in Bahamas, Bankman-Fried was in court for days fighting the move by the U.S. authorities to extradite him before he made a U-turn and accepted to be extradited.

Earlier this month, the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) filed civil charges against Bankman-Fried, alleging that he deceptively raised more than $1.8 billion from equity investors since May 2019 by promoting FTX as a safe, responsible platform for trading crypto assets.

“We allege that Sam Bankman-Fried built a house of cards on a foundation of deception while telling investors that it was one of the safest buildings in crypto,” said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a statement.

Both the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission have filed charges against the three people involved.

“Bankman-Fried and Wang thus gave Alameda and Ellison carte blanche to use FTX customer assets for Alameda’s trading operations and for whatever other purposes Bankman-Fried and Ellison saw fit,” the SEC said.

The complaint further alleges that they were involved “in a multiyear scheme to defraud equity investors in FTX, the crypto trading platform co-founded by Samuel Bankman-Fried and Wang.” Ellison was singled out in the SEC complaint for engaging in artificial manipulation of FTT, FTX’s self-issued token, as part of a broader effort to boost Alameda Research’s available collateral for lending.

In an expanded complaint, the CFTC charges “Ellison with fraud and material misrepresentations in connection with the sale of digital asset commodities in interstate commerce, and charges Wang with fraud in connection with the sale of digital asset commodities in interstate commerce.”

The CFTC said in a statement that Wang and Ellison accepted the claims made against them, and that they’re cooperating with the agency’s ongoing investigation.

“Gary has accepted responsibility for his actions and takes seriously his obligations as a cooperating witness,” Wang’s attorney said in a statement.

Alameda Research, a crypto trading firm, was linked to multiple loans from major crypto firms that have now filed for bankruptcy protection, including Voyager Digital and BlockFi Lending. That is besides the allegation that it was illegally given $10 billion of FTX investors’ funds by Bankman-Fried.

The SEC alleges that both Ellison and Wang, in their respective roles at Alameda and FTX, abetted Bankman-Fried in allegedly defrauding FTX customers. According to the Commission, Wang created a software backdoor in FTX’s platform which allowed Alameda to divert customer funds for its own trades.

Elon Musk announced Tuesday he will step down as Twitter CEO, following the result of a poll he conducted on Sunday.

“I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams,” he said.

I will resign as CEO as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job! After that, I will just run the software & servers teams.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2022

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO had on Sunday, conducted an informal poll where he asked Twitter users if he should step down as the head of the social media company. With majority (57.5%) of the 17 million respondents voted yes, Musk has begun looking for his replacement.

The Boring company founder has relied on polls to make some decisions since he took over Twitter. He said on Sunday that he will abide by the result of the poll. The entrepreneur said that “going forward, there will be a vote for major policy changes.”

Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter has been rocky, enveloped by controversies that have been dominated by free speech. The billionaire has introduced changes to the social media company that his critics have described as absurd.

From sacking more than 50% of Twitter’s workforce, including the content moderation team, to reinstating many suspended accounts, including former US President Donald Trump, to charging $8 fee for verification tick, Musk’s style of running Twitter has not been acceptable to many, including advertisers.

Critics have alleged that his style of leadership has resulted in spike of racist hate speech, especially anti-Semitism. Although Musk has repeatedly claimed that hate speech has significantly dropped and “Twitter usage” (by real humans) has reached “all-time highs”, advertisers have left the platform in droves while those who remain have cut their ad spending.

The call for Musk to step down has been on as early as he took over Twitter. Investment advisor, Gary Black, asked Musk on Tuesday to look within the social media space in his search for a replacement.

“Elon – please focus on seasoned media executives who are passionate about advertising AND technology. There are plenty of people from $DIS, $META, $GOOGL with all the requisite skills and foolish enough to take the job. How about Bret Taylor?” he said.

Musk has been accused of running Twitter all the way a social media company shouldn’t be run, with the layoff of the majority of the platform’s key staff as a typical example.

Besides how his actions affect Twitter, Musk’s other companies, particularly Tesla and SpaceX, have been at the receiving end of his romance with the social media company. Tesla has lost over 60% of its market value since Musk made his bid to acquire Twitter, prompting complaints from the electric vehicle company’s shareholders.

Musk has sold billions of dollars worth of Tesla shares this year to finance the Twitter acquisition, a development shareholders believe is affecting the auto firm market performance. Following the cut of Twitter staff, he pulled in talent from Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Co., including executives, engineers and attorneys, to assist him at Twitter.

Besides Tesla shareholders, people in government have expressed concern about Musk’s Twitter business. On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote to the chair of Tesla’s board, Robyn Denholm, expressing concern that Musk and the board may have violated legal obligations to Tesla shareholders, per CNBC.

Warren had asked the board to answer specific questions about the alleged misappropriation of Tesla resources and conflicts of interest resulting from Musk’s purchase of Twitter.

Also, NBC News reported earlier this month that NASA Administrator Bill Nelson asked SpaceX President and COO Gwynne Shotwell whether Musk’s “distraction” at Twitter might affect SpaceX’s work with the space agency. Though Nelson said she reassured him it would not, the query underscores the facets of growing concerns over Musk’s position as Twitter CEO.

Musk, at the end of the Sunday poll, removed “Chief Twit”, a title he had added upon the completion of Twitter acquisition, from his bio.