Hopes of Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF) receiving a pardon have been shattered. The United States’ president, Donald Trump, confirmed in a recent interview with The New York Times that he would not issue a presidential pardon to the imprisoned FTX founder.
The latest comment came about a year after SBF and his parents sought a pardon from the president.
Trump Shatters SBF’s Pardon Hopes
Last year, Trump issued pardons to several high-profile crypto figures. These include BitMEX’s Arthur Hayes and Benjamin Delo, Silk Road’s Ross Ulbricht, and Binance’s Changpeng Zhao.
Earlier this year, the infamous Bitfinex hacker, Ilya Lichtenstein, was released from prison under the First Step Act, signed by Trump. This enabled his early release after serving less than two months of a five-year sentence.
Amid the pardon spree, SBF began his quest to secure an early release. Recall that he was arrested and jailed as the mastermind behind the cataclysmic collapse of the once-giant crypto derivatives exchange FTX in late 2022. Since March 2024, he has been serving a 25-year jail sentence.
In February 2025, SBF’s parents sought a pardon for their son, according to reports circulated at the time. The infamous FTX founder has also expressed a wish to be released early, when he repeatedly praised Trump’s pardon for the ex-Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández (JOH), who was sentenced due to cocaine importation.
However, Trump has now shattered any hope of clemency for the FTX founder. This implies that Bankman-Fried will continue serving jail time and will only explore getting a pardon when another president rules the country.
More Pardon Refusals
Aside from SBF, Trump also made it clear that he would not be issuing a presidential pardon to a couple of individuals. These include Sean “Diddy” Combs, an American rapper who was imprisoned for crimes related to prostitution, and Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president, who was recently arrested following narco-terrorism crimes.
Another individual Trump said he would not grant clemency to is the former New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez. He is currently serving an 11-year sentence due to a bribery charge and acting as a foreign agent.
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