A secret recording exposed during Sam Bankman-Fried's trial revealed Caroline Ellison and Alameda Research staff discussing the collapse of Alameda and FTX in a November 9, 2022, meeting in Hong Kong. In the recording, Ellison can be heard saying that FTX "always allowed Alameda to, like, borrow user funds, as far as I know.” Former Alameda software engineer Christian Drappi testified about the recorded meeting and described Ellison's demeanor as "sunken" and her body language as unconfident. When asked whose idea it was to plug Alameda's loan losses with FTX customer money, Ellison giggled and said, "Um, Sam, I guess.”