Elizabeth Holmes is getting out of prison.
According to a notice sent to victims of the Theranos fraud, the former Theranos CEO has been approved to transfer from Federal Prison Camp Bryan in Texas to the Austin Transitional Center, a halfway house in Del Valle, Texas, on August 23, 2027.
So Holmes still has another 11 months. And she won’t exactly be walking out the front gate as a completely free woman. She will remain within the federal corrections system and subject to the rules and restrictions that come with halfway-house placement. But after entering federal prison in May 2023, the move will represent a major step toward eventually returning to normal life.
Holmes was sentenced to 135 months in prison. That’s 11 years and three months. Assuming the August 2027 transfer happens as scheduled, she will walk out of FPC Bryan having spent 4 years, 2 months, and 24 days inside the prison camp. That’s around 38% of her original sentence spent in an actual prison facility before transitioning to community confinement.
And what a different life Holmes will be returning to.
She has a longtime partner, Billy Evans, and two young children. Their son, William, was not yet 2 years old when Holmes entered prison and will be 6 when she transfers to the halfway house. Their daughter, Invicta, was only a few months old when Holmes reported to prison and will be 4 years old by the time her mother leaves FPC Bryan.
And then there are her finances.
There was a time, not that long ago, when Elizabeth Holmes was worth $4.5 billion. She was one of the richest women in the world and one of the youngest self-made billionaires the world had ever seen up to that point.
And then it all came crashing down.
We’re not going to recap the entire Theranos implosion in this article. If you want the full story, read John Carreyrou’s incredible book “Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup.” You can also watch Hulu’s excellent series “The Dropout,” which was based on Rebecca Jarvis’ ABC News podcast and stars Amanda Seyfried as Holmes and Naveen Andrews as her longtime romantic and business partner, Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani.
What we’re interested in today is a much narrower question: How much of Elizabeth Holmes’ former fortune will be waiting for her when she walks out of prison in 11 months?
Surely someone who was once worth multiple billions managed to squirrel away or negotiate the ability to keep some tiny sliver of that fortune. Even 10% of $4.5 billion would be $450 million. Heck, who wouldn’t be perfectly happy to walk out of prison at age 43 with just 1% of a $4.5 billion former fortune? That would still be $45 million. Unfortunately for Elizabeth, that’s not what she can look forward to.
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From $4.5 Billion To $0
At its peak, private investors valued Theranos at $9 billion. Holmes owned about half the company, so simple math produced a peak personal fortune of $4.5 billion.
In 2014, we wrote about Holmes becoming the world’s youngest self-made female billionaire. At the time, investors were pouring money into Theranos, Walgreens and Safeway had signed major commercial partnerships, and Holmes was appearing on magazine covers as the next great Silicon Valley visionary.
But Holmes didn’t sell billions of dollars worth of Theranos stock and stash the proceeds somewhere before the company collapsed. Her wealth rose and fell with the value of her shares.
And fall they did.
After “The Wall Street Journal” began exposing major problems with Theranos’ technology in 2015, the company unraveled with astonishing speed. Regulators descended, commercial partnerships disappeared, lawsuits piled up, and investors who had valued the company at billions discovered that its supposedly revolutionary blood-testing technology did not perform as advertised.
Theranos formally dissolved in 2018. Holmes’ shares became worthless.
By January 2020, CelebrityNetWorth had reduced Holmes’ estimated net worth from $4.5 billion to $0.
As bad as that was, financially, things were about to get much worse.
Restitution Order
On January 3, 2022, Holmes was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud Theranos investors and three counts of wire fraud. In November of that year, she was sentenced to 135 months in federal prison.
Then came the financial hammer.
In May 2023, Holmes and former Theranos president Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani were ordered to pay approximately $452 million in restitution to victims of the Theranos fraud.
Holmes and Balwani are jointly and severally liable for the restitution. In plain English, the court did not give Holmes a $226 million bill and Balwani a separate $226 million bill. Both can be held responsible for the outstanding balance until the victims have been repaid.
So even if Holmes somehow pays $50 million tomorrow, while Balwani contributes nothing, she would still be on the hook for $402 million.
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently upheld the restitution order.
For that reason, we now think the most useful way to represent Holmes’ financial position is a net worth of approximately negative $450 million.
But Surely She Still Has Some Money Somewhere?
That’s the obvious question. Holmes spent years moving in the highest levels of Silicon Valley. Theranos raised more than $900 million. Holmes met presidents, billionaires, corporate executives, diplomats, and some of the richest investors in America. At one point, the company she controlled was supposedly worth $9 billion.
Surely she managed to personally bank a few million dollars along the way?
There isn’t much evidence that she did.
Unlike startup founders who sell large amounts of stock while their companies are booming, Holmes’ famous fortune was overwhelmingly tied to Theranos shares. When those shares became worthless, the vast majority of her wealth vanished with them.
There were also years of extraordinarily expensive legal battles. Holmes fought regulators, investors, patients, business partners, civil plaintiffs, and eventually the federal government. By 2020, lawyers in one matter were already saying they hadn’t been paid.
Perhaps the clearest glimpse into Holmes’ actual financial situation came shortly after she entered prison.
She Fought Over A $250 Monthly Payment
In June 2023, the Justice Department sought to clarify the schedule under which Holmes would make restitution payments.
While incarcerated, Holmes was expected to make nominal payments. After prison, the government wanted her to pay at least $250 per month or 10% of her income, whichever amount was greater.
Holmes’ attorneys objected, specifically citing her “limited financial resources” and arguing that her circumstances were materially different from Balwani’s.
So What Is Elizabeth Holmes Worth Today?
Our current estimate is negative $450 million.
At 43 years old, Holmes will presumably have decades after prison to earn income and make restitution payments. Unless something extraordinary changes, however, it’s difficult to imagine her personally earning enough to make a meaningful dent in a $452 million obligation.
There Is Some Good News!
Before you start feeling too sorry for Elizabeth’s future financial prospects, there is one fairly significant piece of good news:
Her longtime partner comes from a very wealthy family.
Billy Evans is the son of William “Bill” Evans and the grandson of William D. and Anne Evans, the founders of Evans Hotels, a privately held San Diego hospitality company whose history dates back to 1953.
The Evans family today controls three major Southern California resort properties:
- The Bahia Resort Hotel on Mission Bay,
- The Catamaran Resort Hotel and Spa in Pacific Beach,
- The Lodge at Torrey Pines in La Jolla
These are not little roadside motels. Combined, the properties contain nearly 800 hotel rooms in some of the most valuable and desirable locations in San Diego.
The exact ownership structure is private and has evolved over several generations, so it would be wrong to simply assign the value of the three hotels to Billy or even to his parents. But Billy’s branch of the family is firmly inside the group that has controlled the business for decades, and there is little question that the broader Evans family possesses substantial wealth.
And, amazingly, Billy has remained with Holmes throughout her extraordinary fall.
When Holmes reported to prison in May 2023, their son William wasn’t yet 2 and their daughter Invicta was only a few months old. When Holmes leaves FPC Bryan in August 2027, William will be 6 and Invicta will be 4.
So, no, there won’t be a forgotten $450 million chunk of Elizabeth Holmes’ Theranos fortune waiting for her outside the prison gates. There probably won’t be a forgotten $45 million chunk either.
But she will be returning to two young children and a partner whose family has spent more than seven decades building one of San Diego’s most prominent privately owned hotel businesses.
After going from $4.5 billion to negative $450 million, that’s about as good a financial safety net as Elizabeth Holmes could reasonably hope for.
