TopStep’s CEO has finally broken his silence, but for many traders it has landed as a classic nothing burger.
The email, sent by CEO Michael Patak, was meant to calm growing frustration around platform outages and poor support. Instead, it has poured fuel on the fire, particularly across Reddit, where traders have been tearing into what they see as an empty apology with no real accountability attached.
On this one, the traders have a point. Saying sorry is the bare minimum. When traders are losing time, confidence and in some cases money due to repeated platform failures, words alone do not cut it. A complimentary reset or fee credit would have gone a long way towards rebuilding trust. The fact that nothing tangible was offered has raised eyebrows.
Speculation has inevitably followed. Some in the community are openly questioning whether TopStep is facing liquidity pressure. That remains firmly in rumour territory and should be treated as such. Still, when a firm avoids even modest gestures of goodwill, it invites uncomfortable questions.
Patak’s message admits the company has fallen short. He acknowledges that platform instability and weak support have hurt trader performance and confidence. He also accepts personal responsibility, pointing to rapid growth that outpaced investment in technology and support. That admission is welcome, but it is not new. Traders have been flagging these issues for months.
The promised fix is familiar. More focus on platform stability. Better alignment between engineering, product and support teams. Weekly updates via Discord and social media. In isolation, none of this is controversial. In practice, traders have heard similar commitments before, both from TopStep and other prop firms that grew too quickly for their own infrastructure.
What frustrates traders most is the imbalance. TopStep has had no problem onboarding traders and taking evaluation fees while the platform continues to glitch. Reliability and customer support appear to have been scaled after the problem. For a business that sells consistency and discipline as core trading values, that disconnect is hard to ignore.
There is also a subtle shift in tone that has not gone unnoticed. Patak frames the situation as a trader-style review of mistakes and adjustments. The comparison may be well intentioned, but traders are quick to point out that when they make mistakes, they pay for them immediately. Firms, by contrast, often ask for patience.
TopStep may yet turn this around. If platform stability genuinely improves and support response times recover, much of the anger will fade. But goodwill in this industry is fragile. Apologies without compensation tend to accelerate distrust rather than repair it.
For now, the email reads less like a turning point and more like a holding statement. Traders are not asking for miracles. They are asking for evidence.