The Rise and Fall of Elizabeth Holmes: A Silicon Valley Tragicomedy in 6 Trivia Facts

Elon Musk values Twitter at $20 billion, according to an internal memo reported by the Information on March 25, 2023. Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter in October 2022, meaning Twitter lost more than half its value in just half a year. However, Musk acknowledged it as an overpayment at the time of the deal.

In 2021, Sam Bankman-Fried instructed those working for him to pay a bribe of $40 million to one or more Chinese officials to help unfreeze trading accounts maintained by FTX’s sister company, Alameda Research, that held up to $1 billion in cryptocurrencies. Bankman-Fried was charged with 13 criminal counts, including foreign bribery, on March 28, 2023.

Washington Mutual, or WaMu, was a savings and loan association that collapsed in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. It had $307 billion in assets and was sold to JPMorgan Chase for a bargain price of $1.9 billion. The bank’s failure was the largest in US history, surpassing the previous record by Continental Illinois in 1984.

What happened to Silicon Valley Bank?

Silicon Valley Bank was the second-largest failure in US history, with $209 billion in assets. Its collapse was triggered by a bank run and a downgrade in its credit rating. The bank’s customers, mostly tech companies and wealthy individuals, withdrew $42 billion in one day on March 10, 2023, leaving the bank with a negative cash balance. Starting March 13, 2023, SVB’s depositors were able to access their funds as The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Federal Reserve stepped in. Assuming SVB’s liabilities, HSBC agreed to take over and buy the UK arm of the bank for one pound. Signature Bank, a New York-based regional bank, shuttered suddenly on March 12, marking the third-biggest bank failure in US history.

First Citizens Bank is a family-owned bank founded in 1898 by Frank Holding Sr. and his family. It has become the largest family-owned bank in the US, with over 500 branches in 19 states. On March 26, 2023, the bank purchased all deposits and loans from Silicon Valley Bridge Bank. This was the financial institution whose collapse in March 2023 was the second-largest in US history and set off a chain reaction that caused the third-biggest bank-fail.

Before its collapse in Nov. 2022, FTX was valued at $32 billion and the third-largest exchange in volume. CoinDesk reported that FTX was lending its token FTT to Alameda Research, which FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried owns. FTX experienced a bank run after the story sparked mass withdrawals. On Dec. 12, 2022, Sam Bankman-Fried was arrested in the Bahamas at the request of the US government. Bankman-Fried’s arrest came just a day before he was due to testify in front of the House Financial Services Committee.

Alfred Escher helped build Switzerland’s railways and founded Credit Suisse. He was affectionately known as King Alfred I. In 2023, UBS saved Credit Suisse in a deal worth 3 billion Swiss francs ($3.25 billion). As much as the rescue would “secure financial stability and protect the Swiss economy,” it centers additional risks on one banking giant, UBS Group AG. Credit Suisse shareholders will get just 1 UBS share for every 22.5 Credit Suisse shares.

Soros Fund Management, Fortress Investment Group, and Monroe Capital formed a lender consortium to provide about $225 million in a credit bid. The bankruptcy filing was announced on May 15, 2023, as Vice Media Group faced financial difficulties and top-executive departures. Vice Media Group is known for its websites, such as Vice, Refinery29, i-D, and Motherboard, and its TV program “Vice News Tonight,” which was canceled in April 2023.

Factcheck: Billionaire George Soros said he is “alive and healthy” on May 15, 2023, after viral posts on social media falsely claimed he had a fatal heart attack a day earlier. Soros, 92, has been a frequent target of antisemitism, conspiracy theories, personal attacks by Viktor Orban and Vladimir Putin, and endless “death” hoaxes.

Regulators seized troubled First Republic Bank Monday, May 1, 2023, and sold its deposits and most of its assets to JPMorgan Chase Bank. With $229 billion in assets, First Republic Bank became the second-largest bank failure in US history. It surpasses Silicon Valley Bank, which failed on March 10, 2023. Both banks were acquired by JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s largest bank, which has previously acquired failed banks such as Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns during the 2008 financial crisis. Get more news trivia facts on the First Republic Bank failure here.

Bed Bath & Beyond filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Apr. 23, 2023. The company announced it would stop accepting coupons on Apr. 26, 2023, when store-closing sales began. The announcement came after failing to secure funding and facing years of dreary sales and losses.

Holmes was the founder and CEO of Theranos, a startup that raised nearly $1 billion from investors and became a Silicon Valley sensation. However, The Wall Street Journal exposed her technology as flawed and dangerous in 2015. She was convicted of fraud and conspiracy in January 2022 and sentenced to 11 years in prison in May 2023. She was incarcerated on May 30, 2023, in a women’s prison camp in Texas.

Changpeng Zhao is the co-founder and CEO of Binance, which he launched in 2017 after raising $15 million through an initial coin offering. Binance offers various services to crypto enthusiasts, such as trading, stakes, lending, mining, and launching new tokens. In March 2023, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) filed a lawsuit against Binance and Zhao in Illinois, claiming they breached derivatives rules and operated a “web of deception.” On June 5, 2023, the SEC joined the legal attack with 13 charges against Binance and Zhao. The SEC said Binance had mixed “billions of dollars” in customer funds and secretly sent them to a separate company controlled by Zhao. Zhao has vowed to defend his platform vigorously and said Binance is not a US exchange.