“I'm a free man now”: Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht speaks out after Trump pardon 

Ross Ulbricht, in his first remarks after being pardoned fully and unconditionally by President Donald Trump on January 21, 2025, has expressed his gratitude. Ulbricht is the founder of Silk Road, a dark web marketplace that was infamous due to its operations of illegal sales of drugs along with other illicit activities.

In a video shared on social media, he stated:

“Last night, Donald Trump granted me a full pardon. I was doing life without parole, and I was locked up for more than 11 years. But he let me out. I’m a free man now. So let it be known that Donald Trump is a man of his word.”

He added:

“Thank you so much, President Trump for giving me this amazing blessing. I’m so, so grateful to have my life back, to have my future back, to have this second chance.”

“This is such an important moment for me and for my whole family. It’s an important moment for everybody who has been working for this for years.”

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What did Ross Ulbricht do?

Ross William Ulbricht, born on March 27, 1984, created Silk Road in 2011. Silk Road was a hidden service on the Tor network that masked users' identities by routing internet traffic through multiple servers.

This created a safe platform for transactions in Bitcoin, a cryptocurrency that furthered the anonymity of those wishing to use it. In short, Silk Road was soon infamous for processing sales of illegal goods and services including narcotics but also hacking tools and fake documents.

He used the pseudonym Dread Pirate Roberts since he took the name from a movie character in The Princess Bride. By doing so, the marketplace increased extensively, allegedly with more than 1.5 million transactions worth around $213 million during his operation period.

Silk Road's sudden success caught the attention of many law enforcement officers. In October 2013, FBI agents arrested Ulbricht in San Francisco and seized Silk Road's servers, leading to a closure of the marketplace.

He was, however, charged on multiple counts. Among them was conspiracy to launder money, to traffic narcotics, as well as conspiring to commit computer hacking activity.

He was convicted in 2015 under seven counts for running Silk Road; he was sentenced to two life terms plus another term of 40 years, and he could not have the chance of his early parole.

His case drew lots of attention and debate on rights to digital privacy, government overreach, and the appropriateness of the sentence he was given since he was not directly involved in any physical harm or violence.

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Trump's pardon proclamation

Within a week of assuming the presidency, Trump declared Ulbricht's pardon. It was an election promise to his voters. On his social media platform, Truth Social, Trump stated that the prosecution of Ulbricht was "laughable" and maintained that those who were engaged in it formed a larger part of the "weaponization of government" against him, according to CNN.

He believed that the sentence given to Ulbricht was too harsh and that he had a duty to correct what he felt was a misuse of justice by the courts.

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Who is Ross William Ulbricht?

Ross William Ulbricht was born in Austin, Texas. He grew up in a supportive family setting and went through his youth attaining Eagle Scout standing. Ulbricht graduated from Westlake High School in 2002.

He furthered his education at the University of Texas at Dallas, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics in 2006. He then went on to Pennsylvania State University for a master's program in materials science and engineering, graduating in 2009.

It was while at university that Ulbricht developed an interest in libertarian economic theory and started to be influenced by the ideas of economists such as Ludwig von Mises and Samuel Edward Konkin III.

He, after pursuing his academic ambitions, attempted many things in entrepreneurial lines, like day trading and a video game company, of which he was never quite successful. Then, Ulbricht partnered with one of his friends to create an online used bookseller known as Good Wagon Books.

However, it was around this time that Ulbricht started to conceptualize the Silk Road, a concept that later came to be known as "Underground Brokers."

He wanted a marketplace from where people could buy anything anonymously without leaving any traceable record.

Ulbricht took inspiration from the historical Silk Road, the route that linked East and West. He believed such a platform could provide for free trade with no interference from governments.

In personal writings, he described how the website would facilitate transactions while maintaining the anonymity of the users.