President Donald Trump said he does not know who Changpeng Zhao is even as he pardoned him last month and after Zhao’s exchange helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin this year.
The denial came in a CBS 60 Minutes interview when host Norah O’Donnell asked, “Why did you pardon Changpeng Zhao?”
“Are you ready? I don’t know who he is,” Trump replied. He added, “I know nothing about it,” when pressed about the Binance transaction tied to his family’s new DeFi venture.
The Binance founder, also known as “CZ,” pleaded guilty in 2023 to enabling money laundering, served four months in prison, and agreed to step down as Binance CEO. The White House framed the pardon as a correction of “overreach,” with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt calling the prior prosecution a “war on cryptocurrency.”
In May 2025, MGX, an Abu Dhabi-backed company, announced a $2 billion deal using World Liberty Financial’s USD1 stablecoin, facilitated by Binance, which drew criticism for potential conflicts of interest due to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial earning around $80 million annually from investing the stablecoin’s reserves in government bonds and money market funds.
The Trump family is associated with World Liberty Financial, and notes state his sons sit on the advisory board of Dominari Holdings, a firm linked to Trump and based in Trump Tower, which has partnered on new digital-currency projects with Zhao’s companies.
Earlier this year, Trump pardoned Ross Ulbricht, who’d been serving life without parole, for operating the Silk Road dark web marketplace, and the BitMEX co-founders Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed for their 2022 guilty pleas related to anti-money-laundering failures, actions that align with his campaign promises to bolster the crypto industry and ease regulations.
Information for this briefing was found via BBC and the sources mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
