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. Justice Department’s Office of the Pardon Attorney. The case is listed as pending, meaning a clemency petition has been opened and is being reviewed. The office said details of ongoing reviews are not made public.
The former crypto executive, known by his initials SBF, was convicted in 2023 for orchestrating the fraud and conspiracy scheme that ultimately destroyed FTX, once one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges.
The company collapsed in November 2022 after CoinDesk reported balance sheet issues related to affiliated trading company Alameda Research, revealing an $8 billion hole in FTX’s accounts and triggering a run on customer deposits.
Bankman-Fried confirmed his interest in leniency during a recent interview with FOX Business.
“I suppose you would like a pardon from the White House?” FOX Business correspondent Susan Li asked him over the phone. “Absolutely,” Bankman-Fried replied. “Obviously, you know, it would ultimately be up to the president, not me.”
He declined to say whether family members were lobbying the administration on his behalf. SBF’s parents, Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried, professors at Stanford Law School, have already reached out to people in Trump’s orbit to explore a possible presidential pardon for their son. It is unclear whether any direct discussions with White House officials took place.
The pardon request follows months of public statements from Bankman-Fried that align with Trump’s positions. Writing through intermediaries using prison-approved communications, he praised the president’s decision to launch strikes against Iran, argued that Trump helped “save” the Securities and Exchange Commission by replacing former Chairman Gary Gensler with Paul Atkins, and highlighted the decline in gasoline 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 in the 2020 election. That playbook included things like appearing on Tucker Carlson’s show, which he did last year.
This outreach has gained 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.
However, Trump’s support is far from assured. In an interview with The New York Times in January, the president said Bankman-Fried should not count on a pardon, lumping him in with several other high-profile defendants he had no plans to pardon.
For now, Bankman-Fried remains incarcerated while his appeal efforts and request for clemency move through separate channels.
