Elizabeth Holmes, the founder and CEO of Theranos, has gone from the toast of Silicon Valley to a disgraced figure, once it was determined that her company was essentially a fraud. Holmes has been the subject of a book, podcast, and HBO documentary in the last year, and is also facing federal charges that could land her in prison.
Now, Holmes is getting married.
The former CEO is engaged to William “Billy” Evans, a hotel heir, Page Six reported Sunday. Evans is 27 years old, while Holmes is 35.
For many years, Holmes was romantically linked to Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani, the chief operating officer of Theranos and her alleged co-conspirator, and a man 20 years her senior.
According to Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup , the bestselling book by journalist John Carreyrou, Holmes became a celebrated figure in the tech industry when, in her early 20s, she claimed to have developed a small machine that could test a little drop of blood for numerous diseases. The company raised billions from investors and named such luminaries as former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, as well as future Secretary of Defense James Mattis, to its board.
However, as Carreyrou exposed in a 2015 Wall Street Journal article, the company’s technology never actually worked, or was capable of anywhere close to the feats that Holmes and others claimed. The company also operated in a culture of extreme secrecy and intimidation, and it was disgruntled former employees who came forward to blow the whistle.
Elizabeth Holmes scammed an entire industry, destroyed people’s lives, tried to make people believe a dog was a wolf, is awaiting trial and found love. Who says women can’t multitask? https://t.co/RYMjc2yUfc
— Michelle Bhasin (@michellebhasin) March 30, 2019
In addition to Carreyrou’s book, Holmes’ story was told in both the ABC radio podcast The Dropout and Alex Gibney’s HBO documentary The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley. The latter, in particular, set off controversies, per The New York Post , over whether or not Holmes’ unusual deep voice is an affectation.
Director Adam McKay is said to be preparing a movie adaptation of Bad Blood , with Jennifer Lawrence starring as Holmes. Vanessa Taylor, of The Shape of Water , has been hired to write the film, Deadline reported late last year.
Holmes settled civil charges with the SEC last year, which resulted in Theranos shutting down, but the ex-CEO still faces criminal charges, including nine counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud that were brought against Holmes and Balwani.
The news led to a funny Twitter moment. After a bridal Twitter account ran an item listing “here’s what we know about her fiance,” Quinn Sutherland quote-tweeted it and said “he doesn’t have HBO.”
