Jim Cramer got people talking on March 28 when he posted a short but loaded question on X: “Is SBF the next to see daylight?” The timing wasn’t random.
Just a day earlier, President Donald Trump issued a full and unconditional pardon to Trevor Milton, the disgraced founder of electric truck company Nikola, who was convicted of securities and wire fraud.
A Surprise Pardon
Milton had been sentenced to four years in prison back in December 2023, but remained free while appealing his conviction.
Federal prosecutors had just asked a judge to order Milton to pay nearly $700 million in restitution to defrauded investors. The pardon not only wipes out Milton’s conviction but also blocks any effort to collect that money.
In an Instagram video, Milton said, “I just got a call from the president of the United States, on my phone, and he signed my full and unconditional pardon of innocence. I am free. The prosecutors can no longer hurt me.”
President Trump confirmed the decision later that day. “They persecuted him, they destroyed five years of his life,” Trump said. “He did nothing wrong. And he’s a good person.”
Milton had been found guilty in 2022 for lying to investors about nearly every aspect of Nikola’s business, including faking a working prototype and exaggerating the company’s capabilities. The company filed for bankruptcy protection in February.
SBF’s Calculated Play
Now, attention has shifted to Sam Bankman-Fried, the FTX founder convicted on seven counts of fraud and conspiracy in 2023.
He recently reappeared in the spotlight, giving an unauthorized 43-minute interview to Tucker Carlson from prison, where he argued that he was politically targeted.
Bankman-Fried claimed he initially supported President Joe Biden, but later started donating large amounts of dark money to Republicans, which he now says might have resulted in his downfall. “That started becoming known right around FTX’s collapse,” he told Carlson. “So that probably played a role.”
It wasn’t just an off-the-cuff interview. SBF had mapped this out in a journal back in 2022, listing ideas like “Go on Tucker Carlsen [sic], come out as a republican,” and “Come out against the woke agenda.” He seems to be executing that plan now, portraying himself as someone betrayed by Democrats and worthy of sympathy from Trump.
Could a Pardon Happen?
It might sound far-fetched, but Trump’s history of headline-grabbing pardons makes it plausible. In just the past month, Trump also pardoned Devon Archer, a former business partner of Hunter Biden, and Ross Ulbricht, the Silk Road founder serving a life sentence.
Critics argue there’s no moral case for freeing Bankman-Fried. He’s shown little remorse, and prosecutors have warned he could easily repeat his crimes. But the political climate—and Trump’s apparent willingness to undermine his perceived enemies—could make the impossible happen.
As Slate noted, Bankman-Fried is appealing to Trump by attacking the Southern District of New York, the same office that handled high-profile cases against figures like New York Mayor Eric Adams.
The judge in SBF’s case, Lewis Kaplan, also oversaw Trump’s civil defamation trial with E. Jean Carroll. All of that gives Trump even more personal reasons to consider intervening.
So when Jim Cramer asks, “Is SBF the next to see daylight?”—he might not be too far off the mark.