Earlier this week, President Donald Trump made the most traditional pardons when he granted clemency to Waddle and Gobble, two turkeys, before jetting off to celebrate Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago.
During his second term in office, Trump has issued many less conventional pardons. So far this year, Trump has granted clemency, including pardons and commutations, to more than 1,600 people compared to 238 acts of clemency during his entire first term, according to Pew Research Center. 1,500 of those were January 6 defendants.
Some are famous names — like former baseball star Darryl Strawberry — and others are his staunch supporters, such as the January 6 defendants.
The list also features several notable businesspeople. Some of the highest-profile recipients, such as Changpeng Zhao, the cofounder of the cryptocurrency exchange Binance, align with Trump’s agenda, like his support for the crypto industry. Some also backed Trump politically.
Here are the billionaires and notable businesspeople Trump has pardoned or commuted the sentences of so far in his second term, according to the most recent list published by the Office of the Pardon Attorney. They are listed in the order in which they were granted clemency.
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Ross Ulbricht, Silk Road founder
On Trump’s first full day in office, he pardoned Ross Ulbricht, the founder of Silk Road, an online marketplace for illegal goods and services that generated hundreds of millions of dollars in sales, according to the FBI. In 2015, he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for drug trafficking, money laundering, and computer hacking, among other charges.
“I just called the mother of Ross William Ulbricht to let her know that in honor of her and the Libertarian Movement, which supported me so strongly, it was my pleasure to have just signed a full and unconditional pardon of her son,” Trump posted on Truth Social on January 21.
Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, investors
Devon Archer and Jason Galanis, investors and former business partners of Hunter Biden, were granted clemency in March. In 2018, both were convicted of defrauding a Native American tribal entity. Archer maintained his innocence; Galanis pleaded guilty to two securities fraud schemes.
Trump granted the pair clemency. The pair previously turned on Hunter Biden, providing testimony in the Republican-led 2023 congressional investigation into the then-President’s son.
Benjamin Delo, Arthur Hayes, and Samuel Reed, BitMEX founders
In March, Trump pardoned the three founders of the BitMEX crypto exchange — as well as one former high-ranking employee — who had pleaded guilty to failing to maintain anti-money laundering programs, which violated the Bank Secrecy Act, in 2022.
Trump did not specify the reasons for their pardons, but they fit with his administration’s broader push for the deregulation of the crypto industry.
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Trevor Milton, Nikola founder
Trevor Milton, the founder of electric truck maker Nikola, was pardoned in March. In 2023, he was sentenced to four years in prison following convictions for securities fraud and wire fraud. He was also ordered to pay Nikola nearly $168 million for making misleading public statements about the company. Milton denied any wrongdoing.
“They say the thing that he did wrong was he was one of the first people that supported a gentleman named Donald Trump for president,” Trump said when asked about the pardon.
According to campaign finance records, Milton had donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Republican causes.
Carlos Watson, Ozy Media cofounder
Less than a year after Carlos Watson, the founder of Ozy Media, was convicted of fraud, his sentence was commuted by Trump.
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Watson, who maintained his innocence, was found guilty of creating a plan to defraud investors of tens of millions of dollars by misrepresenting the financial health of Ozy, going so far as to impersonate media executives to lenders and prospective investors. In December 2024, he was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison and ordered to pay $37 million in restitution.
Paul Walczak, nursing home operator
Paul Walczak, the CEO of a Florida nursing home company, was pardoned in April after having pleaded guilty to tax crimes. About two weeks earlier, he’d been sentenced to 18 months in prison and ordered to pay $4.4 million in restitution after failing to pay employment taxes or file income tax returns.
Walczak’s mother, Elizabeth Fago, raised millions of dollars for Trump and other Republicans, according to his pardon application, and attended a $1 million-per-head fundraiser at Mar-a-Lago, The New York Times reported. She was also involved in efforts to publicize Ashley Biden’s diary, the Times reported.
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Todd and Julie Chrisley, real estate investors and reality TV stars
Real estate investor turned reality-TV star Todd Chrisley and his wife Julie Chrisley, who were found guilty of bank fraud and tax evasion in 2022, were pardoned in May. The pair, who maintained their innocence, were sentenced to a combined 19 years in prison and ordered to pay about $22 million in restitution.
Savannah Chrisley, the Chrisleys’ daughter, campaigned for Trump — including at the 2024 Republican National Convention, where she requested a pardon — and the President called her to deliver the news.
Lawrence Duran, healthcare executive
Lawrence Duran, the former co-owner of American Therapeutic Corp., which ran healthcare clinics in Florida, had his sentence commuted in May. He had pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud and money laundering. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison and ordered to pay $87.5 million in restitution in 2011.
Marian Morgan, investor
In May, Trump commuted the sentence of Marian Morgan, who was convicted of multiple counts of fraud in 2011. She was serving a nearly 34-year prison sentence and had been ordered to pay $20 million in restitution.
Along with her husband, John Morgan, Marian Morgan ran a Sarasota-based investment firm that acted as a Ponzi scheme and spent $10 million of investors’ money on luxury cars and a waterfront mansion, prosecutors said.
Morgan pleaded not guilty.
Imaad Zuberi, venture capital investor
In May, Trump commuted the 12-year sentence of Imaad Zuberi, who pleaded guilty in 2019 to making illegal campaign contributions, falsifying lobbying records, and tax evasion. His sentence also included $15.7 million in restitution and a $1.75 million fine.
He has since said he is innocent and worked to withdraw his guilty plea.
Zuberi, who ran a small VC shop, had both fundraised and donated to Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton. But after Trump won the 2016 election, he switched his allegiances, donating $900,000 to Trump’s inaugural committee.
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Changpeng Zhao, Binance cofounder
The wealthiest of those whom Trump has pardoned, Changpeng Zhao, known as “CZ,” is worth nearly $80 million, according to Forbes. The cofounder of crypto exchange Binance was pardoned in October after he had pleaded guilty to violating the US Bank Secrecy Act’s anti-money laundering rules. He had been sentenced to four months in prison and fined $50 million.
In announcing Zhao’s pardon, a White House spokesperson said that “the Biden Administration’s war on crypto is over.”
Since the pardon, questions have been raised about the Trump family’s ties to Binance. The exchange has promoted a stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm backed by the Trump family. Trump denied knowing who Zhao is in a “60 Minutes” interview following the pardon.
“Given the deep financial entanglements of Binance, the Trump family, and the Trump family business, the President’s pardon of Mr. Zhao raises significant questions about the underlying motive behind the pardon,” Rep. Robert Garcia wrote in a letter requesting information on the pardon.
Joseph Schwartz, nursing home entrepreneur
Joseph Schwartz, who ran a chain of nursing homes, was pardoned in November after pleading guilty to tax fraud. In April, he’d been sentenced to three years in prison and ordered to pay $5 million in restitution.
Following his pardon, The Washington Post reported that Schwartz paid lobbyists nearly $1 million in an effort to seek clemency. A White House official responded to the Post that anyone “spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting funds.”
