Sam Bankman-Fried, founder and former CEO of collapsed crypto exchange FTX, formally requested a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump while serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.
The pardon request appeared Monday in records maintained by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. The case is listed as pending, meaning a clemency petition has been opened and is under review. The office said details of ongoing reviews are not publicly disclosed.
The former cryptocurrency executive, known by his initials SBF, was convicted in 2023 of orchestrating the fraud and conspiracy scheme that ultimately brought down FTX, once one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
The company collapsed in November 2022 after CoinDesk reported balance sheet concerns linked to affiliated trading firm Alameda Research, exposing an $8 billion hole in FTX accounts and causing a run on customer deposits.
Bankman-Fried confirmed her interest in clemency during a recent interview with FOX Business.
“I take it you would want a pardon from the White House?” FOX Business correspondent Susan Li asked him over the phone. “Absolutely,” Bankman-Fried responded. “Obviously, ultimately, it would be up to the president, not me.”
He declined to say whether members of his family were lobbying the administration on his behalf. SBF’s parents, Stanford Law School professors Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, previously reached out to people in Trump’s orbit to explore a possible presidential pardon for their son. It is unclear whether there were direct conversations with White House officials.
The pardon request comes after months of public statements by Bankman-Fried that have aligned with Trump’s positions. Writing through intermediaries using prison-approved communications, he praised the president’s decision to launch attacks on Iran, argued that Trump helped “save” the Securities and Exchange Commission by replacing former Chairman Gary Gensler with Paul Atkins, and highlighted lower gas prices during Trump’s term.
He also appears to be following a playbook he wrote to try to curry favor with Republicans after being seen as a Democratic mega-donor during the 2020 election. This playbook included things like appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show, which he did last year.
The outreach has drawn attention because Trump has shown a willingness to pardon high-profile defendants, including several figures linked to the crypto industry. Since returning to office, Trump has pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and the co-founders of BitMEX.
Still, support for Trump is far from assured. In a January interview with The New York Times, the president said Bankman-Fried should not count on receiving clemency, lumping him in with several other high-profile defendants he had no intention of pardoning.
For now, Bankman-Fried remains jailed as his appeal and clemency efforts move forward through separate channels.
