Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes has raised eyebrows with an ominous post about her child’s “health and safety” while serving a prison sentence for fraud.
“I don’t get angry often. Tonight, I am,” Holmes, 42, tweeted on Friday, September 25. “People put my child’s health and safety at risk. They knowingly and consciously chose this path.”
She then warned, “If protecting my child means burning bridges, I’ll burn them to light the way. Time to sleep. I’ll grab the match tomorrow.”
It was not immediately clear who or what Holmes was directing her tweet toward, though she included an AI-generated image of her lighting a match on a bridge. Holmes eventually replied with an apparent non sequitur, sharing a photo of her and one of her children on an airboat. (Holmes and partner Billy Evans share two children.)
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Later, Holmes started trolling people who criticized her for bringing up “health and safety” since she was convicted of four federal counts of fraud and conspiracy in 2022. Her company Theranos shut down in 2018 amid allegations that they misled the public about the capabilities of their fingerprick blood-testing technology, thereby putting patients at significant risk.
“Erm. The company you founded and the lies you told also – I believe – put countless people’s health and safety at risk,” one person wrote, to which Holmes responded, “Can the chat send this guy some x money to get a more flattering profile photo. Literally anything would be better.”
“Is this a threat?” someone else asked, to which Holmes clarified, “A promise.”
“Standard playbook. Be the villain – get caught – play the victim,” a third person chimed in.
Holmes shot back, “Standard playbook, be a nobody, play the sage, be the r*****.”
The disgraced former CEO has been unusually active on X this week, even as she continues to serve her 135-month sentence at the Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas. Last week, it was reported that Holmes will be granted an early release in 2027, at which time she is expected to transition to a halfway house in Del Valle, Texas. (Holmes’ business partner and one-time boyfriend, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, was sentenced to nearly 13 years in federal prison and ordered to also pay a share of the $452 million in restitution to their victims.)
Holmes and her attorneys have repeatedly asked President Donald Trump to either commute her sentence or issue a full pardon. On Friday, September 25, she praised Trump’s political fortunes despite a gloomy midterms forecast for Republicans, a historically low approval rating, rising gas and diesel prices, an ongoing war in Iran and numerous food recalls.
Sharing one of Trump’s midterm campaign videos, Holmes tweeted, “We are winning.”
Holmes is no stranger to aligning with veteran politicians, having convinced late former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, former Trump administration Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and ex-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, among others, to endorse Theranos publicly. (Mattis, 76, and Shultz later repudiated their support for Holmes, while Frist, 74, and Kissinger quietly cut business ties with her.)
Holmes has returned to the spotlight amid the announcement that The Rehearsal’s Nathan Fielder and Some Kind of Heaven’s Lance Oppenheim co-directed a near-3-hour documentary following the former Theranos executive and her partner Evans, 34, in the weeks before she surrendered to federal custody.
You Can See Everything — which opens on October 16 — was screened after much speculation at the 53rd Telluride Film Festival on September 6, where it was met with rapturous early reviews.