♪ this is "nightline." >> tonight, elizabeth holmes on trial. the smoky-voiced billionaire who promised a health care revolution. >> we will change our lives and our world. >> here it is, here's the next steve jobs. >> now in the courtroom, accused of fraud. >> they really painted a picture of elizabeth holmes as somebody who knew exactly what she was doing. >> once her former lover, is he really to blame? driving diversity. the woman who's breaking down barriers. >> i just want people to know that women can do what the men do. >> and changing nascar from the inside out. >> definitely a lot more diversity down on pit road, it's pretty cool to see.

and back in style for the first time since the pandemic. new york fashion week is back. the styles, the celebs, and what kylie jenner showed off. this is what freedom sounds like. and this. this is what freedom smells like. ahhh, enjoy 30 days of open-road freshness. febreze car. la, la, la, la, la

♪ good evening. thanks for joining us. i'm deborah roberts.

elizabeth holmes was once the youngest woman to become a self-made billionaire. her rise was extraordinary. but so was her fall. here's abc's chief >> elizabeth holmes, former billionaire and founder of theranos, is set to be in court today. >> her fall from grace as a rising star in the tech world under scrutiny. >> reporter: a crush of cameras r. lines of spectators. all eyes fixed on disgraced theranos founder elizabeth holmes. the long-anticipated criminal trial now under way in a california courthouse, where the former tech decades behind bars. she's pleaded not guilty in what could be a defining case for the future of silicon valley. >> if the government gets a win in this case, i think that ceos and coos will be a lot more

careful in how they portray their companies to investors. >> reporter: black turtlenecks, blue eyes, smoky voice. >> we will change our lives and our world. >> here it is, here's the next steve jobs. >> reporter: elizabeth holmes was a tech supernova who said she had an amazing invention. >> making it possible to do any lab test from a tiny drop of blood from the finger. >> if any company was a unicorn, at one point theranos was it. >> reporter: the youngest female self-made billionaire, ceo of her own company. >> magazine cover after magazine cover after news post after blog post plus speech. >> reporter: only problem -- it didn't work. and that company, once valued at nearly $10 billion, now worthless. that signature black turtleneck gone this week as holmes entered a packed courtroom for opening

arguments. >> in the courtroom she sat very rigid in her chair. when the prosecution was giving their opening statements, she was laser focused on the attorney. >> reporter: the government spelling out specific areas where they allege holmes misled investors, patients, and doctors, calling specific attention to those blood testing devices, arguing that while holmes repeatedly claimed she could run hundreds of tests on just a few drops of blood, in actuality, it could never run more than 12 tests. prosecutor robert leach saying, this case is about fraud about lying and cheating to get money. >> they really painted a picture of elizabeth holmes as somebody who knew exactly what she was doing, somebody who knew that she was making false representations to investors, doctors, and patients, and somebody who went ahead with it anyway. and that's what they're going to have to prove. >> when elizabeth was listening to the prosecution's opening statements, i watched her.

i looked at her. she kind of struck me as a quarterback on game day, looking at the game plan, sizing up the field, and doing what she needed to do to connect with the jurors. >> reporter: attorneys for holmes in a roughly two-hour-long opening statement painting the picture of a young woman, hardworking, ambitious, who set out to change the world. a woman they acknowledged made mistakes, but say didn't commit fraud. defense attorney lance wade arguing, trying your hardest is not a crime, a failed business does not make a ceo a criminal. >> they really painted elizabeth as sort of a naive visionary. this young woman who at the age of 19 dropped out of stanford to pursue her dream. and that wasn't making false representations, but somebody that perhaps was blind to some of the problems within the company because she was so -- really obsessed with this vision and her goal of making this

company really revolutionize health care. >> reporter: there are tens of millions of documents, over 200 possible witnesses, and thousands of exhibits. court filings indicate holmes herself likely plans to testify. but there's one person you won't see by her side in court. >> most people call me sonny. >> reporter: nearly 20 years her senior, holmes' former boyfriene ranesh once saved theranos with a multibillion-dollar good faith loan. >> i knew what this mission and the company was trying to do was paramount, and on i ended up giving a $13 million personal loan. >> reporter: then became the c.o.o. the two were originally charged together but their trials have been severed for reasons including allegations of abuse, revealed just three days before the trial was set to begin. elizabeth alleging sonny had psychological and emotional control over her, resulting in a pattern of abuse and coercive

control. lasting over their decade-long relationship. the filings detailed sonny allegedly controlled what she ate, how she dressed, how much money she could spend, who she could interact with. >> the defense is putting forward potentially a defense of intimate partner abuse by sonny to show that, well, elizabeth actually believed what she was saying. she believed what sonny was telling her. and therefore, she could not have had the requisite intent to trick or perpetrate fraud. >> reporter: sonny's trial is currently scheduled for next year. his lawyer, jeffrey cooper smith, has called elizabeth's allegations deeply offensive to him, devastating personally. balwani denies all allegations of accuse. i sat down with cooper smith in 2019 and indicated no evidence of a deeply fractured relationship. >> does he feel he was couped by elizabeth holms? >> no, he believed in holmes and

her vision for the company. he tried to execute that plan with her to make it a success. >> reporter: this week the government producing newly released text exchanges between the pair during the time of the alleged abuse, including these where elizabeth writes, madly in love with your and your strength, you are a breeze in the desert for me, my water and ocean. and, feel like the luckiest person in the world because i have you. as the company skyrocketed into stores across the country, the impacts on patients like sherry acor became all too real. >> this is the walgreens where i had the infamous blood draw. >> reporter: as a breast cancer survivor, sherry needed to get tested regularly. but things took a turn when she got her results. >> i saw that the estradile amount was over 300. i called my oncologist's office, the nurse called me back, she said, "i am so sorry, that's not

good, there could be a tumor growing somewhere." i'll never forget that day. >> reporter: the doctor told sherry to go in for more tests but this time recommended a nonthey arenose lab. the theranos tests had been off from hundreds of points. >> no one from theranos called me to apologize. no one. not okay. >> reporter: in the year since theranos shut its doors, elizabeth has been seemingly living life to its fullest. she started a new relationship with billy evans, a hotel heir nearly a decade her junior. this summer she gave birth to her first child, william holmes evans, something the defense may embrace in their strategy. >> ceos and coos everywhere will be looking to see whether or not the government can get a win in this case. and it will really serve as a cautionary tale to people that work in startup companies, not only in health care, but really across all sectors. >> reporter: now, as the trial gets going, expected to last

approximately three months -- >> any comments, elizabeth? >> reporter: one thing is certain, elizabeth holmes, the dropout, is not going down without a fight. >> our thanks to rebecca. up next, theou blazing a trail, helping to make nascar more inclusive. your mission: stand up to moderate to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on... ...with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some rinvoq can even significantly reduce ra fatigue. that's rinvoq relief. with ra, your overactive immune system attacks your joints. rinvoq regulates it to help stop the attack. rinvoq can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious infections and blood clots, sometimes fatal, have occurred... ...as have certain cancers, including lymphoma, and tears in the stomach or intestines,

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♪ briana daniels may be the first black woman to join a nascar pit crew, but she's hoping she won't be the last. tonight we're on the speedway where she's helping to diversify

the sport into something more reflective of today's america. we welcome abc's faith umube to "nightline" with this report. >> reporter: on this michigan speedway, with cars racing up to 200 miles per hour, briana daniels has eyes for just one of them. her mind is clear. the only focus, swapping out this race car's rear tires. while briana is one of the best in the business, with enough skills to replace two 70-pound tires in roughly 15 seconds, this hasn't always been the dream. what would an 18, 17-year-old college student briana daniels think of you right now? >> girl, you are crazy. especially a little black girl like myself at that time, definitely was like, i'm never getting into nascar. it wasn't even a thought in my mind. >> reporter: now not only is briana in nascar, she's making

history. becoming the organization's first black female pit crew member in 2017. >> j want people to know that women can do what the men do. i just wish that we could be treated equally. i'm working to change that. >> reporter: nascar has always contended with a lack of gender and racial diversity within its ranks. it wasn't until 2012, 64 years after nascar began, that it signed on its first female pit crew member, christmas abbott. since then, only 15 pit crew members have been women. just three have been women of color. even nascar's fan base is overwhelmingly white with black fans making up only 9% of the den graphic. >> nascar hasn't had very much success with the african-american community at large because of nascar's association with the confederate flag. you see that symbol, you know that it invokes theseal denig denigration.

>> reporter: in the last year, amid this country's racial reckoning, even nascar is looking to evolve, banning the confederate flag, adding stars like michael jordan and rapper pitbull to its team owner roster. paving the way for the sport to look a little more like the country it represents. >> diversity at nascar has been a big initiative for the sport for a long time. obviously it's taken awhile to get to where we are today. we still have a lot of room to go. >> i just feel like everything i've been through in life brought me to this very moment. >> reporter: in april 2016, briana, then a d-1 basketball star at norfolk state university, received a life-changing opportunity to audition for a coveted spot on a nascar pit crew team. >> those guys put us to the test. even though we didn't have much time to learn everything, they wanted to see who could take that little information in, make the best of it. >> reporter: it was a grueling process made even more difficult by the obvious stigma that came

with being a woman trying out for a role typically held by men. >> one of the guys was also trying out to be a tire carrier. he came up to me and told me, bri, they say none of the women ever make it in nascar. it really made me upset. i was like, i don't care what they say. i'm going to work as hard as i can to prove what they said wrong. >> reporter: for briana, there's no fuel like low expectations. after her tryout, she made the team. >> what are similarities between playing basketball and doing this? >> you have to have that quick hand speed, quick finesse. the same thing, like transition over to being a tire changer, you have to be low to the car, quick, poise, calm. >> do you think you're inspiring the next generation? >> definitely. i get pictures from parents, you know, with their sons, daughters, no matter what race. they have their daughter or son standing in front of a tire. "look at my son trying to be like you." for halloween one year, this little black girl, she had a

bandana on. she had a little race car. makes me tear up, like i'm really doing it, you know? >> ready to go? all dressed up? >> reporter: one of briana's biggest backers has been deon williams. >> you called briana your own little beyonce. she's very special to you? >> i see a lot of her in myself. not to mention she is one of the best females that i've seen change tires. so she can pull two tires like i can over the wall. and she's half my size. you know, respect is due on her end. >> reporter: the retired wake forest football player helps recruit former college athletes for nascar's drive for diversity program. >> introduce our latest. >> reporter: a training initiative aimed at getting women and people of color in race cars and on pit crews. briana is one of its top graduates. >> over 95% of all diverse pit crew over the world came from our program. over 60 individuals in the sport

now currently. >> reporter: deon pulls in these athletes by explaining how lucrative these roles can be. pit crew members can make upwards of $150,000 a year. what about the critics who talk about, why are we talking about race? it should just be about the sport. >> how will the sport grow or change if we don't invite other demographics? or if we don't have all demographics watching the race? briana and myself are in the sport now. due to the efforts that were necessary to put us in this position. because if those efforts were never necessary or put in position, i would still go on ignoring nascar and would not be the 16-year veteran sitting in front of you today. >> what have been the challenges nascar has faced as it's trying to diversify? >> i would say that it's a combination of things. on the athlete side, lack of access to opportunities. on the fan side, the perception that it was not a welcoming industry. and then, you know, it's a vicious cycle. >> reporter: max segal manages

nascar's drive for diversity program and is the highest-ranking black executive in the organization. >> there is an industry effort to bring everybody together on common goals. but again, i want to be clear, i'd love to see progress happen a lot quicker than it has, but living it every day. it just doesn't happen overnight. >> reporter: bubba wallace, nascar's only full-time black driver, is also a product of nascar's diversity push. graduating from the drive for diversity program in 2010. >> when i started racing in 2002, there wasn't much diversity there. as far as the driving side, there was just me. it definitely has changed a lot, definitely a lot more diversity down on pit road, over the wall, behind the wall. it's pretty cool to see. >> reporter: as america last year confronted its history and legacy of racism, wallace was front and center at nascar, speaking out in support of the black lives matter movement and emblazoning his race car with its hashtag. his voice was instrumental in nascar's banning of the confederateoperllace knowsn't m

come flocking in. >> i'm not the guy i don't have one to be, flag's gone, door's wide open. it's not that easy. ideology could be there of some spectators, and that's unfortunate. >> reporter: for briana, it's important to her to make sure the progress nascar has already made doesn't slow down. >> we need some women as crew chiefs, some black women, more color in the garages, more in the stands. >> what do you say to those young people who want to be like you? >> be better than me. you know, if you really have a dream, you have a goal, make that happen. you have to make that dream reality. >> our thanks to faith. up next, the fashion, the celebs, and the extremes. it's all back at new york's fashion week.

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♪ after a year and a half off due to the pandemic, new york's fashion week is back in style. designers, celebrities, and fans

hoping to get a glimpse, all turning out. model gigi hadid making her return to the runway one year after welcoming her daughter. emily ratajkowski months after giving birth, in a form-fitting mini dress. kylie jenner giving her baby bump its fashion week debut. lil' kim part of christian siriano's body positivity show. "in a time so many of us need an escape from the world, fashion is a great place to explore." that's "nightline." you can watch all of our full episodes on hulu. we'll see you right back here