Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, the CEO of Binance, said the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume has poured in $500 million in Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, which was worth $44 billion. His investment was driven by a love of free speech.
“Number one, we want to be extremely supportive of free speech. As a business, we are helping to increase the freedom of money, and free speech comes before freedom of money, so we need to help maintain free speech,” Zhao said. He made the comments at the Web Summit tech conference in Lisbon on Tuesday.
Zhao confirmed Binance’s investment into Twitter on October 28 via a tweet, saying his intern had wired $500 million.
Zhao also cited other “very strong reasons” why he invested in the social media platform — such as Twitter being the “global town square” where people from crypto enthusiasts to politicians can share their opinions.
“I use the Twitter app more than I use the Binance app,” he said at the Web Summit. That’s because he doesn’t trade, but uses the Binance platform to store his cryptocurrencies, he added.
