First they were colleagues on a trading floor in New York. Then they were friends running a start-up together in Hong Kong. Eventually they became partners in a turbulent office romance chronicled in tabloid headlines around the world.
On Tuesday, in a packed Manhattan courtroom, the relationship between Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison took another turn. The two faced each other for the first time since the cryptocurrency trading companies they built together, FTX and Alameda Research, collapsed in November.
Ms. Ellison, 28, took the stand on the fifth day of Mr. Bankman-Fried’s trial on conspiracy and fraud charges stemming from FTX’s implosion. She began by taking more than 10 seconds to identify Mr. Bankman-Fried when a prosecutor asked her to point him out.
