Unlike Binance’s CZ, Trump Not Giving FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried a Pardon Despite Latest Online Campaign ⋆ ZyCrypto

US President Donald Trump has, in principle, reiterated not to grant a pardon to disgraced former CEO of FTX exchange Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF). The move follows an extensive social media campaign by SBF and his wealthy socialite parents to secure his release. The former crypto executive is currently serving a 25-year sentence behind bars for fraud and money laundering charges that resulted in over $8 billion in damages to clients. 

While the charges against SBF were quite damning and the sentence was appropriately severe, the wealthy Bankman family has continued to present its case on social media, claiming that the former crypto executive was unfairly targeted by the Biden administration. 

SBF and his parents have a history of donating to the Democratic Party, and, according to them, Biden and federal prosecutors were reportedly under pressure to secure a stronger punishment to dispel the notion of favoritism toward donors. 

His official account is on a tweeting spree to showcase his “unfair” trial and how the Clinton-appointed Judge Kaplan was out to get him. 

He tweeted:

His move to correlate his own trial to Donald Trump’s legal troubles during the four years of Biden’s presidency is likely an attempt to get the President’s ear and plead clemency. The SBF account has also praised Trump’s crypto policies, regulatory efforts, and other economic measures.

Several other tweets attempted to downplay the exchange’s insolvency and $8 billion hole in its finances, arguing that its affected parties were paid more than they were owed. 

However, the account conveniently left out the fact that the only reason FTX was able to pay back its affected users was that Bitcoin’s price index jumped several times in 2024 and 2025, thereby appreciating the recovered assets. If the crypto market had remained stagnant, FTX investors would have received only a fraction of what they were owed.

SBF was also convicted of siphoning money from user balances to make risky investments through his other company, named Alameda Research. It is yet unclear whether SBF or his PR team is behind these latest tweets. 

No Pardon for SBF: White House Reiterates

A White House correspondent has once again stated that President Trump is not looking to pardon the convicted financial criminal. Trump is clearly distinguishing SBF’s serious fraudulent activities from those of other crypto executives, such as Changpeng Zhao and Ross Ulbricht, who faced lesser charges and were later pardoned by the President.

SBF is currently incarcerated at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York. His other FTX accomplices, including Caroline Ellison and Gary Wang, received shorter sentences because they turned informant against their CEO.