MarketWatch exclusive: Theranos executives, board members and other insiders go on the record for the first time Ultimately, it was the accountants, not the scientists, who were left with no choice but to deliver the bitter pill to the Theranos board: The company had even less money than time. Getting a handle on the numbers was less important than publicity to founder and CEO Elizabeth Holmes, until she was forced to mortgage all of Theranos’s assets to Fortress Investment Group in return for a desperately needed $100 million loan in December 2017.