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Investing.com -- On Thursday, Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ, denied a Wall Street Journal report claiming that representatives of President Donald Trump’s family "held talks to take a financial stake" in Binance’s U.S. arm.
The WSJ also said sources told them that Zhao had been "pushing for the Trump administration to grant him a pardon" following the 2023 guilty plea to violating U.S. anti-money-laundering laws.
In response, Zhao dismissed the claims, posting on X (formerly Twitter): "Sorry to disappoint. The WSJ article got the facts wrong."
He stated that he had not "had discussions of a Binance US deal with … well, anyone."
Zhao also suggested that the article was politically motivated, saying, "Feels like the article is motivated as an attack on the President and crypto, and the residual forces of the ’war on crypto’ from the last administration are still at work."
The WSJ article cited unnamed sources who claimed that Binance had approached Trump’s allies last year in an effort to secure a deal that could help the exchange return to the U.S. market.
It also reported that "the Trumps taking the stake or the deal going through World Liberty Financial"—a cryptocurrency venture backed by the former president’s family—were among the possibilities under discussion.
Regarding the pardon reports, Zhao wrote, "No felon would mind a pardon.” He added: “It’s good to see that even WSJ thinks I should be pardoned."