The White House has confirmed President Trump will not grant clemency to Sam Bankman-Fried, the disgraced founder of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX.
This confirmation reinforces Trump’s previously stated opposition to freeing the imprisoned crypto executive. In an interview in January, Trump ruled out pardoning Bankman-Fried. Bankman-Fried is attempting to secure a presidential pardon by publicly aligning himself with Trump, posting messages criticizing the judiciary and embracing conservative platforms. This strategy has yielded no results.
Bankman-Fried was convicted in March 2024 on multiple counts of fraud and conspiracy tied to the misappropriation of customer deposits. His exchange, FTX, once valued at $32 billion, filed for bankruptcy in November 2022 after revelations about risky financial practices surfaced.
The denial puts to rest speculation that Trump’s broadly favorable stance toward digital assets might translate into clemency for one of the industry’s most notorious figures. Bankman-Fried previously donated significantly to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
At his peak in early 2022, his net worth reached an estimated $26.5 billion. FTX’s implosion triggered widespread regulatory scrutiny of centralized trading platforms and eroded confidence across the sector, leading to calls for tighter oversight of crypto exchanges.