37-year-old founder of the now-defunct blood-testing startup Theranos has made a very interesting move. In her push for clemency, she has formally requested former President Donald Trump to commute her prison sentence. Holmes, a non-doctor who left Stanford University before her degree, was convicted in January 2022. She bilked investors in her tech company—which at one time had a dizzying $9 billion valuation.
In November 2022, Holmes was sentenced to more than 11 years in prison. In other words, though she was convicted on four counts of fraud. She misled regulators and duped investors—including some of the richest people on Earth. Among her supporters were media mogul Rupert Murdoch, political strategist Henry Kissinger and tech entrepreneur Larry Ellison. The charges against her were serious – defrauding investors by touting misleading false claims about Theranos’s groundbreaking technology. This innovative technology claimed to run hundreds of health tests with only a pinprick’s worth of blood.
In 2015, Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou wrote an explosive story. His investigative journalism raised questions about the accuracy and reliability of Theranos’ testing methods, initiating the chain reaction that became the company’s collapse. In the wake of this revelation, Holmes resigned as CEO in June 2018. Even though she exited the company, shortly after that, Theranos ultimately melted down, creating one of the biggest burnups in Silicon Valley’s startup scene.
Holmes’s legal troubles extended beyond investor fraud. She and her co-executive, Sunny Balwani, faced charges from the U.S. government for misleading both investors and patients regarding their technology’s capabilities. The company said it could change the game for blood testing, but deep dives in the media and nonprofits found shocking gaps between their claims and what they delivered.
Holmes’s latest plea for clemency emerges as she settles into her 11 year prison sentence. An announcement on the U.S. Department of Justice web site made her request for commutation official. The move has sparked discussions regarding accountability and the consequences for high-profile individuals in the tech industry who engage in deceptive practices.