The blood-testing company Theranos has been immersed in controversy in recent months, accused of violating government standards and overhyping its technology.
Despite the public storm, Theranos Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes will be hosting a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton on Monday at the company’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., according to the technology news website Re/code.
There will also be an exclusive reception with Hillary’s daughter, Chelsea, for those attendees willing to pay $2,700.
The connection between the Clintons and Theranos runs deep.
Holmes has been featured in the Clinton Foundation’s events. Her company has been advised by Chris Jennings, a longtime health-care adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton.
And Theranos’ board of directors includes Bill Clinton’s former secretary of defense, William Perry, along with other political bigwigs such as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and attorney David Boies, who represented Al Gore in the legal case against George W. Bush that resolved the 2000 election.
Holmes also has fans in the current White House; Vice President Joe Biden visited Theranos last summer and called the company “an inspiration.”
Dubbed “the world’s youngest female self-made billionaire” by Forbes, Holmes — a Stanford dropout — wowed the world by raising hundreds of millions for her Silicon Valley startup, which claimed to produce technology that could cheaply produce reams of medical data from a tiny amount of blood.
But an investigation by the Wall Street Journal found the technology was deeply flawed.
Holmes has not previously been an active donor to either presidential or Congressional campaigns, according to the campaign donation database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics.
The news that Holmes will be hosting a fundraiser swiftly became a punch line on Twitter, with some commentators alluding to concerns that Theranos’ blood tests delivered wildly different results for the same patient on different days.
https://twitter.com/flyosity/status/709479426099032064
@ddiamond every drop counts.
— Chris Morrison (@CT_Morrison) March 14, 2016
Others simply wondered why Clinton would associate with a chief executive under such a cloud.
there’s an argument to be made that this entire election hinges on a bar bet over who least wants to be president https://t.co/vWno4pdkoy
— Holly Anderson (@HollyAnderson) March 14, 2016
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