No pardon for Sam Bankman-Fried: White House confirms

The White House has officially closed the door on any potential pardon for disgraced FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried. Despite all of his recent social media posts in which the former CEO has tried to align himself with President Trump’s economic policies, administration officials have confirmed that there are no plans to offer a pardon.

Sam, we’re sorry. Sweet-talking the President of the United States will not pardon you.

Trump rejects Sam Bankman pardon. pic.twitter.com/1nygg0GNGl

— 0HOUR1 (@0hour1) February 24, 2026

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After CZ, Sam also pursues forgiveness, but with a different approach

For weeks, Sam Bankman had been running a strange public strategy to get a pardon. From his cell, the former FTX CEO posted daily on X, airing complaints about his trial judge and insisting against all evidence that “FTX has always been solvent.” Most notably, he began praising President Trump’s economic policies and criticizing Democrats: a sharp turn for a man who was once one of the biggest donors to the Biden campaign.

The strategy seems to have been a Hail Mary attempt at forgiveness. It didn’t work.

A White House official has made it clear that Trump has no intention of pardoning Bankman-Fried. This is consistent with Trump’s comments in a January interview with The New York Times, where he lumped the SBF in with other figures such as Nicolás Maduro, who will not receive amnesty.

This administration has an unclear position on cryptographic crimes. Recently, the CEO of SafeMoon was convicted for his role in defrauding investors, and we saw a crypto CEO convicted of a $200 million Ponzi scheme. The justice system treats crypto crimes with the same severity as traditional financial crimes.

In addition to massive corporate fraud, the legal system is cracking down on bad actors and shadowy influencers. Recent legal rulings involving influencers like BitBoy show that you can’t just say whatever you want to pump the bags without consequence.

But not everyone experiences the same fate.

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Trump Pardons Changpeng Zhao (CZ) But Not SBF Why?

The rejection of the SBF pardon is notable because President Trump is ready to use his pardon power for crypto numbers. He previously pardoned Ross Ulbricht (Silk Road founder) and former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ). This has led some to believe that SBF is a possibility.

However, the difference is in the nature of crime and political baggage. SBF’s theft of client funds has been compared to Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme: direct theft from retail investors that destroyed confidence in the industry. Furthermore, SBF’s history of donating more than $5 million to the 2020 Biden campaign likely made him a toxic candidate for Trump’s pardon.

As U.S. lawmakers push the SEC to step back and push for regulatory reforms that encourage innovation, they draw a hard line between legitimate business battles and outright theft. SBF’s defense could undermine the administration’s explanation for clearing the market.

For Sam Bankman-Fried, options are running out. He is currently serving a 25-year sentence, and while he has an appeal, legal experts see his chances of success as slim. His mother recently filed a motion seeking a new trial, but without a presidential pardon, he remains in federal custody.

We’ll be watching to see if this consistency extends to other upcoming cases. The rejection of the SBF campaign suggests that the government is happy to let the courts deal with crypto fraud without intervention.

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The article Pardon for Sam Bankman-Fried: Confirms the White House appeared first on 99Bitcoins.