Elizabeth Holmes: founder and chief executive of Theranos

analysisHolmes left Stanford University to start Theranos in 2003, according to a business magazine. She signed the company's restated certificate as President in December 2004, was chief executive officer from 2003 until 2018 and chaired the board; the indictment says she owned and operated the company. In 2016 CMS correspondence listed her, with Balwani, as an owner of the Newark laboratory. She and Balwani were in a romantic relationship from 2004 to 2016, according to the Ninth Circuit. ^{1 2 3 4 5 6 7}

analysisHer control rested on a special class of shares. In early 2014, according to the SEC, she persuaded the board and shareholders, who were given only a few days to vote, to create Class B shares with 100 votes each, issued only to her; afterwards she owned just over half of the outstanding shares but over 99 percent of the votes. According to the SEC's complaint, between 2013 and 2015 she was paid $200,000 to $390,000 a year and exercised about 53.7 million stock options, and as of March 2018 she had never sold Theranos stock. She stepped down as chief executive on June 15, 2018, remaining chair. ^{8 9}

analysisOn March 14, 2018 the SEC charged her, Theranos and Balwani with fraud on investors. She settled the same day without admitting or denying the allegations, agreeing to pay a $500,000 penalty, to a ten-year bar from serving as an officer or director of a public company, to return 18.9 million shares and to give up her voting control; the court entered final judgment on March 27, 2018. The SEC's charges were not court findings, and Balwani contested them. ^{1 2 3 4 5}

analysisIndicted with Balwani on June 14, 2018, she pleaded not guilty, and at trial her lawyer told the jury that leading a failed start-up did not make her a criminal. The indictment was an accusation; on January 3, 2022 a jury convicted her of conspiracy to defraud investors and three counts of wire fraud on investors, acquitted her of the patient conspiracy and three patient counts and could not agree on three other investor counts, which were later dismissed; Balwani, tried separately, was convicted on all counts. Judge Davila sentenced her on November 18, 2022 to 135 months and three years of supervised release. The restitution of $452,047,268 owed jointly with Balwani comprises, according to the HHS Departmental Appeals Board, $322,747,296 owed to business entities and $129,299,972 to individuals. ^{6 7 8 9 10 11 12}

analysisThe Ninth Circuit affirmed her conviction, sentence and restitution on February 24, 2025 and, a television news network reported, denied her petition for further hearings on May 8, 2025. On March 26, 2026, according to an excerpt of the decision published on a legal blog, Judge Davila reduced her sentence by a year, to 10¼ years, finding that no individual investor-victim had shown substantial financial hardship; before the reduction a television news network had reported a release date in August 2032. ^{11 13 14}

analysisBecause of the conviction, the HHS Office of Inspector General notified her on December 29, 2023 that she was excluded from Medicare, Medicaid and all federal health care programs for 90 years. She appealed, arguing among other things that the exclusion rested on Chevron deference, amounted to an unlawful lifetime bar and used the amounts invested as an improper measure of the risk to federal programs; an administrative law judge upheld it on April 25, 2025 and the Departmental Appeals Board affirmed it on January 16, 2026. ^{12 15}

analysisHer partner, Billy Evans, founded and runs Haemanthus, a privately held diagnostics start-up in Austin, Texas, incorporated in Delaware in late 2023 or February 2024, according to two online encyclopaedia articles that differ (no registry record of it was retrieved), which says it is developing a device to test blood, urine and saliva, similar to Theranos's Edison; the company reported raising $3.5 million from friends and family and seeking $15 million more. A public radio network reported in May 2025, citing sources, that Holmes had been advising Evans from prison, and a lawyer for Holmes did not reply to the network's request for comment; the company says she has no formal role and that it is "not Theranos 2.0", and a person familiar with it told a national newspaper that she is not involved. Her SEC bar applies only to public companies. ^{1 2 3}

analysisIn opposing her 2026 sentence reduction the government argued that she was advising her partner on raising capital for a start-up whose prototype device bore striking similarities to Theranos's; the court found that the scrutiny her notoriety brings reduced the likelihood that she could reoffend in the same way, and granted the reduction. ⁴