Sam Bankman-Fried, the imprisoned founder of the collapsed cryptocurrency exchange FTX, has filed a formal clemency petition with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of the Pardon Attorney, requesting a presidential pardon from President Donald Trump while serving a 25-year prison sentence for fraud and conspiracy.
The application, now listed as pending in DOJ records, comes as Bankman-Fried pursues a simultaneous appeal of his conviction and sentence.
In a phone interview with FOX Business correspondent Susan Li — his first on-record media appearance from behind bars — Bankman-Fried made clear he wants Trump’s intervention. “I assume that you would want a pardon from the White House?” Li asked. “Absolutely,” Bankman-Fried replied. “It would be, obviously, ultimately up to the president, not up to me.”
When pressed on whether his parents or family members were lobbying the administration on his behalf, Bankman-Fried offered only a deflection: “I can’t speak for them.”
The pardon application is listed on the DOJ’s clemency case status portal as a request for a “pardon after completion of sentence.” The office confirmed that details of ongoing reviews are not disclosed to the public.
President Donald Trump has said that he will not pardon former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, rejecting clemency for the convicted executive.
Bankman-Fried’s failure at FTX
Bankman-Fried was sentenced on March 28, 2024, to 25 years in federal prison after a New York jury found him guilty on all seven criminal counts in November 2023, including two counts of wire fraud and five counts of conspiracy.
Prosecutors demonstrated that he misused billions of dollars in customer deposits to fund risky bets at his affiliated hedge fund, Alameda Research, while also financing political donations and real estate purchases.
The court found that FTX customers lost $8 billion, equity investors in FTX lost $1.7 billion, and lenders to Alameda Research lost $1.3 billion. Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered an $11 billion forfeiture.
Despite the verdict, Bankman-Fried refuses to characterize his conduct as theft.
“I didn’t steal user funds either,” he told Li. “Customers have been repaid now 170% or so on their deposits. It’s one of the very few cases where the platform was over-collateralized, where customers were more than made whole. And yet there was not just a criminal investigation, but a prosecution and dozens of years of sentence.”
He pointed to the recovery of cryptocurrency markets during the FTX bankruptcy process as the reason customer payouts exceeded original deposit amounts.
“It’s a great disservice to them that it has taken three years,” he added.
The push for clemency follows a months-long pattern of public statements from Bankman-Fried that mirror Trump’s positions.
Writing through prison-approved communications, he has praised Trump’s decision to strike Iran, credited the president with rescuing the Securities and Exchange Commission through the appointment of Paul Atkins to replace Gary Gensler, and highlighted falling gasoline prices under the current administration.
The approach mirrors a political repositioning strategy Bankman-Fried had deployed before — after being seen as a Democratic mega-donor in 2020, he appeared on Tucker Carlson’s program in 2025 to signal alignment with conservative audiences.
The bid places Bankman-Fried alongside a wave of high-profile defendants who have received clemency from Trump since his return to office.
Trump pardoned Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht, former Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, and the co-founders of BitMEX.
The FTX collapse began in November 2022 after CoinDesk reported on balance sheet concerns linking FTX to Alameda Research, triggering a customer run that exposed an $8 billion gap in the exchange’s accounts.
Key FTX insiders, including former Alameda CEO Caroline Ellison and FTX co-founder Gary Wang, testified against Bankman-Fried after pleading guilty and cooperating with federal prosecutors.
