The Make America Healthy Again movement may have found its next cause: justice for Theranos founder and convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes.
On Oct. 31, mommy-blogger-turned-MAHA-influencer Jessica Reed Kraus wrote a Substack post titled “Elizabeth Holmes’ Redemption Arc Loading” for her nearly 500,000 subscribers. The post is sympathetic toward Holmes, a former Silicon Valley darling who falsely claimed that Theranos’ blood-testing technology could deliver faster and more accurate results than existing methods from just a few drops of blood. Holmes, of course, ultimately stood trial, was found guilty and sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors of hundreds of millions of dollars, though she still maintains her innocence.
But according to her “MAHA crew,” Kraus writes, Holmes is a deeply misunderstood character. If anything, Holmes could have been one of them: “My crew joked that if Holmes emerged today, she would be counted among the innovators MAHA endorses.” This isn’t the first time she’s written about Holmes — in a May post, Kraus noted she was beginning to read up on Holmes’ case — but it’s certainly her most supportive post to date.
Holmes has welcomed the affection from prison. Her X account linked to Kraus’ post, calling it “a beautifully written article.” In response, Kraus signaled there’s more to come: “My audience is interested in learning more about your case – all that’s been overlooked and twisted. Based on the research I’ve done, it’s definitely deserving of fresh eyes and a whole new series of investigation, which I’m committed too. Stay tuned!”
Also in the X replies: Brittany Hugoboom, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the conservative women’s magazine Evie, which often writes about the MAHA movement. “Curious to learn more about this,” Hugoboom posted on Nov. 1.
Meanwhile, entrepreneur and longevity enthusiast Bryan Johnson — who has also embraced MAHA — has bantered with Holmes online, even giving her a diet plan for prisoners. Holmes’ X account frequently posts about missing her two young children, and anti-abortion activist Lila Rose says she believes Holmes’ sentence was unjust and has called to “Free Liz.” Many of Kraus’ readers, who are drawn to her content because of her pro-Donald Trump, MAHA flair, are similarly sympathetic toward Holmes: When Kraus polled her readers in May on whether they thought Holmes’ prison sentence was fair, 81 percent answered no.
What’s behind this budding alliance? It may seem unexpected, but the driving philosophies behind both MAHA and the disgraced Theranos founder are well aligned.
For starters, both have presented themselves as eager to take on entrenched interests.
“She was very big in positioning herself as an anti-establishment figure,” says Benjamin Mazer, a pathologist and assistant professor at Johns Hopkins who has written about both Holmes and the MAHA movement separately in the past. “The large lab companies were the bad guy, and then she’s the outsider, small player who is going to overtake the establishment. That fits in with [MAHA].”
There’s also a common streak of “rugged individualism” that champions people taking control of their own health — Holmes via an at-home health monitoring device and MAHA via looser public health regulations, according to Andrea Love, a biomedical scientist and health misinformation expert who follows MAHA.
But perhaps Holmes’ most attractive quality as a MAHA anti-establishment hero is her prosecution itself: It’s seen as proof that she was an outsider being punished for pushing back against corporate interests.
It’s certainly a key part of the narrative crafted by Kraus. In her recent Substack post, the top MAHA influencer wrote that despite the common idea that Holmes’ downfall was caused by “a faulty machine,” she believes she “found another (more practical angle) that framed Holmes as a catastrophic threat to a trillion-dollar industry controlled by conglomerates, with masked Pfizer interests looming.”
All these factors combined make Holmes a unifying figure for the MAHA movement, which is considered a broad coalition with various interests related to wellness and health freedom.
Holmes’ story can be molded to champion any cause that’s important to the different facets of MAHA, says Kathryn Olivarius, a historian at Stanford University who is currently writing a book on the movement.
For those who believe the health system is controlled by a conspiracy of major corporations, Holmes is a victim of Big Pharma. For biohacking enthusiasts who are into wearable devices, Holmes was an early adopter of the technology — even if the product never actually worked. For mothers who see themselves as protectors of their children, Holmes is simply a mom who is trying to provide the best care for her family under trying circumstances.
“She’s such a perfect martyr for this. It feels almost inevitable that this would happen,” Olivarius says. “There’s something in her story for everyone in this movement… You can always frame it so that you know she’s somehow being victimized here.”
It’s a method that Holmes herself used during her days in Theranos, Olivarius adds: “She was seeking to always tell a story to investors or to board members or to regulators, etc. This is a tactic that she herself would recognize.”
Holmes may also have more practical reasons for an alliance with MAHA.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court rejected her request for a rehearing on her failed appeal of her criminal conviction. But the possibility of a pardon isn’t out of reach, as the Bulwark’s Will Sommer noted, especially considering Trump has already pardoned plenty of other white collar criminals, such as Binance founder Changpeng Zhao and Nikola Motors CEO Trevor Milton. Being a member of Trump’s political tribe only helps.
Billy Evans, Holmes’ partner and the father of her kids, also recently launched a health startup that might benefit from policies made by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s HHS. Evans has founded a company called Haemanthus that promises to create a health diagnostics product with artificial intelligence. He has stated, “This is not Theranos 2.0,” and that Holmes is not involved. But it would likely be subjected to many of the same regulations that Holmes’ company tried to dodge, Love says. Loosened regulatory oversight on clinical diagnostics would give commercial tests a “stamp of legitimacy,” she adds, even if the tests are not entirely doing what they claim to do.
For now, Holmes’ direct communication with MAHA acolytes has been somewhat limited.
She just began posting on X from prison in August, and she may be dictating her comments to someone on the outside: Her bio says, “Mostly my words, posted by others,” and she didn’t respond to a request for comment via direct message on X.
But Holmes’ effort to cultivate her relationship with MAHA may just be beginning. A few days after her shoutout for Kraus’ article, Holmes posted a reply to a now deleted comment on X and wrote about RFK Jr. for what appears to be the first time. Holmes’ characterization of the MAHA leader?
“Urgently fortunately we have RFK who is willing to question existing narratives and is not on the take.”
