Stanford professor David Mills, who led SBF's defense as a favor to his parents, says the ex-FTX CEO is “the worst person I've ever seen do a cross examination”
Stanford Law Professor David Mills, who led defense for FTX's Sam Bankman-Fried as favor to his parents, now fears ‘unwinnable’ case has ended their friendship.
Context & Ripple Effects
Mills's account adds a defense-side view to a case already marked by Bankman-Fried's own testimony: he blamed former FTX executives while prosecutors challenged him with his prior communications in a combative second day on the witness stand.
The defense had also framed FTX's lack of a chief risk officer as a failure exposed by the crypto crash, while Gary Wang described Alameda's exceptional credit access. Mills's personal connection to Bankman-Fried's parents makes his assessment notable beyond ordinary trial commentary.
First-order effects
- Mills's public criticism damages Bankman-Fried's standing with a lawyer who led his defense and indicates that the representation has carried a personal cost for the family connection.
- It reinforces the central practical weakness exposed at trial: Bankman-Fried's own testimony could create more openings for adversarial questioning rather than repair the defense narrative.
Second-order effects
- The episode makes it harder to frame FTX's collapse solely as an external market shock when trial coverage has focused on internal privileges, oversight gaps, and the defendant's explanations.
- For FTX stakeholders, attention remains on the contrast between the defense's risk-management account and evidence about Alameda's special treatment, keeping governance failures central to the case's public interpretation.
Third-order effects
- If executive defendants increasingly take the stand in complex corporate-collapse cases, counsel may face a sharper trade-off between a founder's direct narrative and the evidentiary risks of cross-examination.
- The broader lesson is that weak internal controls and concentrated decision-making can turn a corporate failure into a credibility test for the individuals who built and ran the company.
The trend: The FTX case is part of a wider reckoning in which crypto-company governance failures are examined through the accountability of their founders and executives.