Elizabeth Holmes
 | |
| Holmes in her signature black turtleneck | |
| Birth name | Elizabeth Anne Holmes |
|---|---|
| Born | February 3, 1984 |
| Birthplace | Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Entrepreneur |
| Known for | Founding Theranos |
| Years active | 2003–2018 |
Elizabeth Anne Holmes (born February 3, 1984) is an American former entrepreneur who founded the blood-testing company Theranos in 2003, at age 19, and served as its chief executive. By 2014, Theranos was valued at $9 billion, and Forbes named Holmes the youngest self-made female billionaire.[1] After reporting in 2015 showed that the company's technology did not work as claimed, Theranos collapsed. In January 2022, a federal jury convicted Holmes of defrauding investors, and she was sentenced to 135 months in prison.[2]
Early life and education
Holmes was born in Washington, D.C., to Christian Holmes, who worked for government agencies including USAID, and Noel Holmes, a former congressional committee staffer. She enrolled at Stanford University in 2002 to study chemical engineering, and left at 19 to start a company, using money that had been set aside for her tuition.[1]
Theranos
Holmes founded the company in 2003 as Real-Time Cures and later renamed it Theranos, a blend of "therapy" and "diagnosis". Theranos claimed that its devices could run a wide range of tests from a few drops of blood taken from a finger prick. The company opened testing sites in nearly 50 Walgreens stores under a partnership that planned for thousands more.[1]
By 2014, the company's valuation had reached $9 billion. Holmes, who owned about half of its stock, was named by Forbes as the youngest self-made female billionaire.[1] Time included her in its 2015 Time 100 list of the world's most influential people.[3] Media coverage often compared her to Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a comparison she encouraged, and she became known for wearing black turtlenecks.[1]
Collapse
In October 2015, The Wall Street Journal published reporting by John Carreyrou showing that Theranos ran most of its tests on conventional blood-analysis machines rather than its own technology.[1][4] Federal regulators shut down the company's Newark, California, laboratory in January 2016.[1]
On March 14, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Holmes, Theranos, and former company president Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani with raising more than $700 million from investors through fraud. Holmes settled without admitting or denying the allegations, agreeing to pay a $500,000 penalty, return 18.9 million shares, and accept a 10-year bar from serving as an officer or director of a public company.[5] In June 2018, she stepped down as chief executive and was indicted on federal wire fraud and conspiracy charges. Theranos announced in September 2018 that it would dissolve.[1]
Trial and sentence
Holmes's criminal trial began in September 2021 and lasted about 15 weeks. On January 3, 2022, the jury found her guilty of three counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud against investors. She was acquitted on four counts, and the jury could not reach a verdict on three others.[1][2] In November 2022, she was sentenced to 135 months in prison, along with three years of supervised release, and ordered to pay $452 million in restitution jointly with Balwani.[1]
Balwani was tried separately and convicted on all 12 counts against him in July 2022. He was sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison.[6][7] Holmes began serving her sentence on May 30, 2023, at a federal women's prison camp in Bryan, Texas.[8]
Personal life
Holmes began dating Billy Evans in 2017, and the two married in 2019. They have two children: a son, William, born in July 2021, and a daughter, Invicta, born in February 2023.[1]
In popular culture
Carreyrou expanded his reporting into the 2018 book Bad Blood. Alex Gibney's HBO documentary The Inventor premiered in March 2019, and the 2022 Hulu limited series The Dropout starred Amanda Seyfried as Holmes, a role for which Seyfried won an Emmy Award.[1]
Holmes's name and image were the basis of Liz777, a Milady persona whose artwork includes her Forbes cover and whose online community became known as Lizzygang.
Holmes's X account became active again in September 2025, while she was in prison; its bio describes its posts as "mostly my words, posted by others".[10] On September 26, 2025, the account adopted a Milady profile picture, posting that it was "putting this on for a few days" and asking followers to "find more words than milady". The post tagged Charlotte Fang and listed five freedoms: speech, markets, association, information, and thought.[11]
See also
References
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 "Elizabeth Holmes". Biography.com. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "U.S. v. Elizabeth Holmes, et al.". U.S. Attorney's Office, Northern District of California. Retrieved October 13, 2026.
- ↑ Henry A. Kissinger (April 2015). "Elizabeth Holmes". Time. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ January 3, 2022. "Elizabeth Holmes verdict: Former Theranos CEO is found guilty on 4 counts". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ March 15, 2018. "SEC Charges Theranos Founder Elizabeth Holmes With 'Elaborate, Years-Long Fraud'". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ July 7, 2022. "Former Theranos exec Ramesh Balwani is convicted of fraud". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ December 7, 2022. "Ramesh 'Sunny' Balwani is sentenced to nearly 13 years for his role in Theranos fraud". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ May 30, 2023. "Elizabeth Holmes has started her 11-year prison sentence. Here's what to know". NPR. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ @TheOneAndArjun (Arjun Krishna) (September 28, 2025). "Elizabeth Holmes has a milady profile picture". X. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ Jessica Mathews (January 31, 2026). "The mystery behind Elizabeth Holmes' tweeting spree from prison". Fortune. Retrieved October 16, 2026.
- ↑ @ElizabethHolmes (September 26, 2025). "Putting this on for a few days. All I ask is you find more words than milady. @CharlotteFang77 1) Free Speech 2) Free Markets 3) Free Association 4) Free Information 5) Free Thought". X. Retrieved October 16, 2026.