Tyler Shultz questions Theranos device shown in Elizabeth Holmes documentary
The Theranos whistleblower said Holmes appeared almost unrecognizable to him in You Can See Everything and disputed the device she presented in the film.
Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz said on CBS Mornings on Monday, October 19, that Elizabeth Holmes looked almost unrecognizable to him in the new documentary You Can See Everything. He also disputed the Theranos device she presents in the film, raising a specific objection as the documentary draws a large cinema audience in the US and Canada.
Shultz recalled Holmes as someone who commanded a room. The woman he saw onscreen looked ‘like a, a broken woman’, he told CBS Mornings, adding: ‘It was almost unrecognizable.’ The film follows Holmes at her San Diego rental property in 2023, in the weeks before she began her prison sentence.
Why Shultz disputes the device in the film
Shultz said Holmes lays out what she identifies as a Theranos blood-testing device for co-director Nathan Fielder. But, Shultz said, it was not the device he worked with for 12 hours a day, or the one Theranos hid from regulators. He associated the device he knew with failed quality controls and incorrect medical information given to patients. His account does not independently establish the identity of the device shown in the film.
Shultz said he believed Holmes had misled Fielder by presenting a different device. Holmes’s intent has not been established by that allegation. CBS reported that she did not admit wrongdoing in the documentary. She was convicted in 2022 on multiple counts of defrauding Theranos investors.
How the Holmes documentary reached audiences
The comments follow the film’s reported $15 million opening weekend. TechCrunch said that figure was based on Sunday estimates and ranked as the second-biggest opening weekend for a documentary. The nearly three-hour film played in 855 theatres that weekend, with a reported 2,000 sold-out screenings. The Guardian also reported a $15 million opening in the US and Canada.
The weekend result was the focus of NewsJaws’ earlier report on the film’s opening. Shultz’s Monday comments add an objection from someone who worked at Theranos. He joined the company as an intern in 2013, left the following year and later informed investigations by The Wall Street Journal and government regulators, CBS reported.
Fielder co-directed You Can See Everything with Lance Oppenheim. TechCrunch reported that the filmmakers had extensive access to Holmes and her family during the month before she went to prison. That access puts Shultz’s dispute over the device at the centre of a question viewers may bring to the film: how it presents the technology behind Theranos’s claims.
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Sources and context
- Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz says Elizabeth Holmes looks like "a broken woman" in documentaryCBS News
- The reviews are in! Is You Can See Everything the greatest film ever?The Guardian
- Everyone’s watching the Elizabeth Holmes documentary ‘You Can See Everything’TechCrunch
AI-assisted article checked against the listed sources. NewsJaws did not conduct interviews or attend the reported events.