But on Thursday, on the eve of his departure to a federal correctional facility, Salame mocked his grim situation. “I am pleased to announce that I am starting a new position as an inmate at FCI Cumberland!” he posted on LinkedIn.

The Republican Kingmaker

In the rubble of FTX’s collapse, Salame has stood out from his former colleagues like Caroline Ellison and Nishad Singh. While they came from a nerdy, effectively altruistic background and championed democratic causes, Salame built a reputation as a stubborn extrovert. During his brief time as a young crypto executive, he also made a name for himself in D.C. as a Republican donor – a distinction that helped him find his now wife, crypto lobbyist Michelle Bond, but also got him into the district attorney’s office brought difficulties.

And while other members of Sam Bankman-Fried’s inner circle cooperated with the Justice Department, Salame pleaded guilty – but also invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination. He did not testify in Bankman-Fried’s trial last fall. While Ellison only received a two-year prison sentence despite her central role, the same judge gave Salame a much harsher sentence.

Following his former boss’s example, Salame took to social media to present his case to the public. In the final months before his incarceration, Salame wrote on business transmission.

He even went on something of a media tour in the final days before reporting to prison, including an appearance on Tucker Carlson’s talk show, who shared Salame’s view that partisan prosecutors were cornering him because of his role as a Republican supporter.

The power couple

While Salame’s public antics often seemed humorous, the story became even darker when prosecutors filed charges against Bond in August. Salame argued that he negotiated a deal with the Justice Department that would spare Bond, with whom he has a young son, campaign finance costs. The public prosecutor rejected the lawsuit. Bond was subsequently charged with three felonies and faces a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

The Bond allegations underscore that FTX executives’ huge – and illegal – donations to political candidates remain an issue. During the last two election cycles, FTX and its top employees were among the top donors in D.C., with prosecutors arguing that they used customer funds and ran illegal straw donor schemes to funnel donations through third parties.

Due to complications with extradition from the Bahamas, Bankman-Fried was not charged with campaign finance at his trial, and prosecutors dropped a second case against him after a judge sentenced him to 25 years in prison last November. Instead, Salame became the poster boy for the violations, and Bond was soon implicated in the case, showing that prosecutors are still digging into the sprawling network.

In their indictment, prosecutors argued that Bond and Salame entered into a “sham consulting agreement” worth $400,000, which Bond then used to finance a failed congressional campaign.

While Bond’s case is ongoing, Salame will report to prison on Friday. He continued posting on X until the end. “Today I learned that people are still using LinkedIn,” he wrote Thursday night after his career update went viral.