The story behind Caroline Ellison: What is the former Alameda Research CEO’s net worth?

FTX’s collapse has led to an increased focus on the role played by Alameda Research and its CEO Caroline Ellison.

But what is the story behind Ellison and what’s her net worth?

Who is Caroline Ellison?

Caroline Ellison was born in 1994 and is the daughter of Glenn Ellison, a Professor of Economics at MIT, who coached her math team at middle school and Sara Fisher Ellison, also an economist at MIT.

Ellison grew up in the Boston suburbs before graduating from Stanford University in 2016 with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics.

She started her career at trading firm Jane Street Capital, where she met FTX co-founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

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Like Ellison, Bankman-Fried was also raised by professors and the pair embraced the philosophy of “effective altruism,” which involves making large sums of money to fund philanthropic pursuits that benefit society to the greatest extent possible. The two reportedly were involved in an on-and-off relationship

Bankman-Fried, like Ellison, was raised by professors and the pair believe in the philosophy of “effective altruism,” which involves making large sums of money to fund philanthropic pursuits that benefit society.

When Bankman-Fried left Jane Street in 2017 to start his own hedge fund known as Alameda Research, Ellison soon joined him after spending just 19 months at Jane Street.

Ellison called the move “a blind leap into the unknown” but soon became one of the lead traders at the new firm and said joining Alameda was “too cool of an opportunity to pass up” but dealing with capital was “kind of daunting”.

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She said: “Mostly, sort of, it was something I wasn’t used to thinking about.

“So it was sort of – I don’t know, I guess I was like a trader for, I mean, not that long at Jane Street but a year and a half, which was kind of more trading experience than a lot of Alameda traders had at the time.

“I kind of wanted to come in and be like an expert on everything, but there was still lots of stuff in the crypto world that I knew nothing about.”

SBF soon stepped down from his role as the company’s CEO to focus on cryptocurrency trading platform FTX, which he founded in 2019, making Ellison and Sam Trabucco the company’s new co-CEOs.

Ellison became CEO in August 2022 when Trabucco announced on Twitter he was stepping down from the role. Trabucco said leading Alameda with Ellison had been “difficult and exhausting and consuming,” but added that he would “stay on as an advisor.”

In a podcast on May 25, Ellison said many of her trades relied on “elementary school math” and gut.

Until the collapse of FTX, Ellison lived with nine other FTX or Alameda colleagues in Bankman-Fried’s $30 million home in the Bahamas.

She allegedly paid SBF rent, and was believed to be in a romantic relationship with him.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Ellison told Alameda staff she was one of four people aware of the decision to send FTX customer funds to Alameda, to help the fund meet its liabilities.

According to a source who spoke to CNBC, Alameda used FTX’s customer funds in a way that went unnoticed by customers, employees and auditors.

The company had allegedly lent billions in customer funds from FTX but underestimated the amount needed if a customer wanted to cash out.

Despite FTX being worth billions of dollars, one anonymous source described the firm as being “run by a gang of kids in the Bahamas”.

Ellison’s public profile has more or less disappeared since the FTX collapse

What is Caroline Ellison’s net worth?

It is believed Ellison’s net worth is around $15 million.

However, following the collapse of FTX and Alameda, it might have been affected.

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