Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried threw his meandering “What H-A-P-P-E-N-E-D” Twitter thread into damage control Wednesday after a Vox reporter published Twitter direct messages of him cursing about regulators – a group he famously and publicly courted for their influence.

“It’s really hard to be a regulator,” he said Wednesday of three- and four-letter agencies with the “impossible” job of overseeing fast-moving industries such as crypto. “And so often they end up mostly unable to police as well as they ideally would.”

As Vox’s article quickly went viral, Bankman-Fried said he didn’t know his messages with a reporter would be made public. He called some of his takes “thoughtless.”