Caroline Ellison reportedly sent a text amid the FTX collapse saying she was 'kinda worried that everyone is gonna quit/take time off'

• Caroline Ellison texted FTX execs earlier this month, worrying that 'everyone is gonna quit/take time off.'
• It's one of many exchanges reviewed by the NY Times that reflects the internal collapse of FTX.

Caroline Ellison, the then-chief executive of hedge fund Alameda Research, sent a text earlier this month saying that she was "kinda worried that everyone is gonna quit/take time off" with a sweating-face emoji amid the collapse of its corporate sibling, crypto exchange FTX, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times.

Ellison reportedly sent the text to a group chat with Ryne Miller, a top lawyer at FTX, around November 8, after FTX faced a run on customer deposits in the wake of a report that Alameda Research, the hedge fund led by FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, held an unusually large share of FTX's FTT tokens, which quickly lost value.

Alameda Research didn't respond to Insider's request for comment on time before publication.

Ellison's text is just one of many exchanges seen by the Times that reflects the day-to-day chaos that brewed inside FTX as its executives scrambled to salvage the exchange.

The day Ellison sent the text, fellow crypto company Binance announced that it signed a non-binding agreement to bail out FTX by acquiring the company, according to Insider. But Binance walked away from the deal the next day, citing government investigations and news reports on the misuse of customer funds in a statement on November 9.

"Sam, I'm sorry," Binance's founder Changpeng Zhao texted Bankman-Fried in an exchange that was reviewed by Times. "But we won't be able to continue this deal. Way too many issues. CZ."

On the day the deal fell apart, Miller responded to Ellison's "sweating-face" text by saying that FTX is in need of "a professional manager vested with decision-making authority," per the Times.

FTX filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy days later. The company's newly appointed CEO, John J. Ray III, wrote in filings that FTX faced a "complete failure of corporate controls." He wrote that has never seen a company in such poor shape in his 40 years of handling bankruptcies.

Alameda Research and around 130 companies affiliated with FTX also filed for bankruptcy, Insider reported.