Trump says he has no plans to pardon jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried: NYT

Business•January 8, 2026, 4:26PM EST
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Trump says he has no plans to pardon jailed FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried: NYT
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Quick Take

  • During a two-hour-long interview, Trump spoke on a wide range of topics from U.S. oversight over Venezuela to whether he would consider pardoning several high-profile figures.
  • Former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence and is in the process of trying to appeal the conviction.

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President Donald Trump told The New York Times that he has no plans to pardon former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried, despite the jailed exec's attempts for clemency.

During a two-hour-long interview, Trump spoke on a wide range of topics from U.S. oversight over Venezuela and its ousted leader Nicolás Maduro, to whether he would consider pardoning several high-profile figures, including Bankman-Fried.

The list included Maduro, former New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, music power player Sean "Diddy" Combs — and Bankman-Fried, The New York Times reported.

Bankman-Fried was convicted in 2023 during the Biden administration on multiple fraud and conspiracy charges for stealing billions of customers' funds from his now-bankrupt crypto exchange, FTX. He is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence and is in the process of trying to appeal the conviction.

Over the past year, he has been active on his X account, which says its posts are Bankman-Fried's words, but shared by a friend. In December, Bankman-Fried praised Trump's pardon of ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández and said "few are more deserving than him."

Bankman-Fried's pardon chances seem slim. He was one of the largest donors to the Biden campaign in 2020, donating $5.2 million to defeat Trump at the time. Since Trump became president, he has pardoned some high-profile people connected to the crypto industry, including former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao and the operator of the darknet market Silk Road Ross Ulbricht.

During his interview with The New York Times, Trump also defended his backing of the crypto industry. His family's crypto dealings have been a major sticking point in lawmakers' efforts to pass into law legislation that would regulate digital assets at large. Trump and his family have multiple crypto ventures, including World Liberty Financial, a DeFi and stablecoin project that lists Trump and his three sons as co-founders. The Trump family also holds a 20% stake in the mining firm American Bitcoin.

“I got a lot of votes because I backed crypto, and I got to like it,” Trump told the NYT.


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