Binance will probably stick to its promise to put $500 million towards Elon Musk’s on-again, off-again bid to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share.
The exchange’s CEO, Changpeng Zhao (CZ), was recently asked whether he still stood with his fellow billionaire.
“I think so,” he said, when speaking at the Future Investment Initiative conference in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Tuesday.
CZ promised to back the bid when it was announced in April, joining a handful of other crypto-adjacent financial companies, including Fidelity Management and Sequoia Capital.
Musk shared private messages with other crypto moguls earlier this year discussing how they might make Twitter more “decentralized.”
Jack Dorsey Told Elon Musk Twitter Should Be a Protocol 'Like Signal'
During Elon Musk's contentious attempt to acquire Twitter, former CEO and co-founder of the birdsite Jack Dorsey told the Tesla CEO that the microblogging platform should be based on an "open source protocol, funded by a foundation." The suggestion was unearthed as part of the legal discovery process in Musk's ongoing litigation with Twitter and its Board of Directors, which is attempting to hold the billionaire to his offer to buy the service. One of the exhibits in the case is an archive of te...
For Binance, CZ said it presented a chance to help bridge social media and news into Web3. However, he later clarified that his support would only remain so long as Musk actually followed through on the deal.
“If he’s off, we’re off,” said the Binance CEO during an interview in June.
Musk nearly did back out of the agreement the following month, objecting to what he characterized as Twitter’s failure to give him sufficient information about the prevalence of spam bots on its platform.
Yet with mounting legal pressure from Twitter to close the deal, Musk eventually agreed to the original terms. It now must be closed by Friday or risks ending up back in court.
Elon Musk's Tesla Still HODLing $218M in Bitcoin
Tesla's Bitcoin holdings remain unchanged from the second quarter of 2022, according to documents released by the electric car manufacturer ahead of its third-quarter investor relations call. In Tesla's report released to the public on Wednesday, the company says it still holds $218 million in Bitcoin. In July, Tesla announced that it sold 75% of its Bitcoin holdings, around $936 million at the time. After the sale, Tesla reported it continued to hold $222 million worth of "digital assets" on it...
Meanwhile, according to sources contacted by Bloomberg, officials from the Biden administration are discussing whether to subject some of Musk’s ventures to national security reviews. Among them are his Twitter buyout, which is being supported by multiple foreign investors including Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia.
Binance’s CEO is himself a Chinese native, but fiercely denied allegations that Binance is a “Chinese company” in a blog post last month.
