Elizabeth Holmes, the Theranos founder and convicted fraudster who was sent to prison in 2023, has asked President Donald Trump for a commutation that would allow her to leave prison many years early, according to new reports from Bloomberg and the Substack of Liz Oyer. It’s unknown whether Trump will use his pardon powers to get Holmes released, but given his track record, it seems like she’s got a pretty good shot.
Holmes reported to the Federal Prison Camp (FPC) Bryan in Bryan, Texas, in May 2023 and was supposed to serve 11 years for fraud. Holmes founded the blood testing company Theranos and repeatedly lied to investors about the capabilities of her technology. She was found guilty of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud in 2022.
Trump has granted pardons and commutations to over 1,600 people since he took office for a second term in January 2025; roughly 1,500 were involved in the Jan. 6, 2021, coup attempt. The pardons have erased over $1.5 billion in penalties that offenders were previously required to pay back, according to Liz Oyer, the former pardon attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice. Oyer was fired after she refused to give actor Mel Gibson his gun rights back at the behest of Trump. Gibson had lost his gun rights after a domestic violence conviction in 2011.
Presidential pardons wipe out any need to pay restitution, and the number in Trump’s wake has been staggering. For example, Trevor Milton, the founder of the defunct electric and hydrogen vehicle company Nikola, was ordered to pay back $660 million to investors he’d defrauded. After his pardon from Trump last year, he owes nothing. Milton and his wife donated $1.8 million to Trump in 2024.
Just last week, Trump handed out 14 pardons, according to the DOJ website. Nine of those cases involved fraud.
Incredibly, Trump has actually granted clemency to one woman twice, if you can believe it. Adriana Camberos had her sentence for fraud commuted in 2021 by Trump in the last days of his first term. She had been convicted of attaching counterfeit labels to 5-Hour Energy bottles and selling them in the U.S. when they were only supposed to be used in Mexico. Camberos was convicted in 2024 on an unrelated fraud case and was pardoned again last week, according to The Guardian.
Trump has granted clemency to other high-profile figures like Changpeng Zhao, founder of Binance, and Ross Ulbricht, the founder of the darknet marketplace Silk Road. Ulbricht was serving a life sentence before he was granted a pardon.
Holmes and Theranos President Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani reportedly owe $452 million in restitution to their victims. But Holmes has only asked for a commutation, which would not wipe out the money she owes to investors. It’s unclear why she didn’t ask for a full pardon.
Holmes hasn’t directly asked for a pardon on her X account, but she has given hints. Back in November, she tweeted about Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams, who had asked for Trump’s help with medical treatment when his healthcare provider wasn’t acting fast enough to provide a cancer therapy he wanted.
“Our healthcare system is fundamentally broken when we need help from POTUS to get treatment,” the Holmes account tweeted. “Context: Scott Adams needed immediate access to life saving treatment. he needed President Trump’s help as nothing else was working. He pleaded on X, and the President helped him.”
Will Trump help Holmes? Where there’s a will, there’s a way.
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