Disgraced pharma bro millionaire Martin Shkreli is having a rough week.
Just hours after Shkreli was freed on a $5 million bond following his high-profile arrest Thursday on securities fraud charges, he was replaced as CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the role that first blasted him into public infamy when he raised the price of an AIDS drug in September.
Turing announced Friday that Shkreli has resigned as CEO of the pharmaceuticals company he founded as he faces charges of essentially running a Ponzi scheme with investors at his hedge fund earlier in his career. Turing has named an interim CEO to replace Shkreli.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the executive move.
In an earlier statement, Turing had said, "The legal matters concerning the Founder and CEO Martin Shkreli are personal and have no bearing on Turing Pharmaceuticals."
Shkreli also serves as CEO of another pharmaceutical company, KaloBios.
The FBI arrested the 32-year-old bad boy CEO on Thursday and accused him of defrauding investors and using funds from Retrophin, another pharmaceutical company he started, as his "personal piggy bank" to pay off the debts he owed to investors in his previous hedge fund.
Shkreli has since attempted to refute those charges by noting, with some curious logic, that it can't be a Ponzi scheme because his "victims" actually made money.
"At a press conference, the government suggested that Mr. Shkreli was involved in a Ponzi scheme. Ponzi victims do not make money, yet Mr. Shkreli’s investors enjoyed strong results. In summary, Mr. Shkreli expects to be fully vindicated," a spokesperson for Shkreli said in a statement provided to Fortune.
At one time considered a young prodigy in the hedge fund world, Shkreli transformed into the most hated man in America in September when his company Turing bought a drug used to treat AIDS and raised the price from $13.50 to $750. The move was roundly criticized by politicians and the media.
Shkreli has since leaned in to the public hatred by egging on critics from his Twitter account and live video broadcasts. If that wasn't enough, he went on to drop $2 million to buy the only known copy of Wu-Tang Clan's latest album, Once Upon a Time in Shaolin.
The FBI later joked that it failed to seize the album during Shkreli's arrest.
His arrest was greeted by much of the Internet with a sense of satisfaction that Shkreli had received his comeuppance so quickly, even if it was for financial fraud rather than any of his other misdeeds.
Shkreli, for his part, appeared to either be unaware of that reaction, or deliberately mocking it with his first and only tweet after being let out on bail.
Glad to be home. Thanks for the support.— Martin Shkreli (@MartinShkreli) December 18, 2015