Changpeng “CZ” Zhao is pushing back on the idea that he had business ties to President Donald Trump’s family, calling the claims a full-on misunderstanding.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, CZ told CNBC, “There’s no business relationships whatsoever.” He said people were reading too much into the events that followed his 2025 pardon, especially around the use of a stablecoin linked to Trump’s relatives.
The rumors began after Trump’s October 2025 pardon, which came a year after CZ was released from prison. He had served four months following a 2023 guilty plea for allowing money laundering at Binance during his time as CEO.
Part of that plea deal included stepping down from the company and paying a $4.3 billion settlement to the Department of Justice. He left the role but remains one of the exchange’s biggest shareholders.
$2B stablecoin payment from Abu Dhabi triggers speculation
The noise started with a $2 billion investment Binance received in March 2025 from MGX, a state-owned investment company in Abu Dhabi.
Instead of wiring the cash directly, MGX paid in $USD1, a stablecoin created by World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm launched by Trump’s family. That’s what sparked all the suspicion.
“MGX is the investor. They choose $USD1,” CZ said. “My request to them was they pay us in crypto. I don’t want to deal with banks, really.” He said people wrongly thought that accepting $USD1 meant he had business with the Trump family. “Many people misconstrued that.”
CZ explained that Binance didn’t hold on to the stablecoin.
Instead, it converted it to other assets over time. “Stablecoin is just a currency for payment. Just because I accepted that, it doesn’t mean I invested in the issuer of that.”
David Wachsman, a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial, denied any link to the pardon. “WLFI is not a political organization and had zero role in the pardon process. To imply otherwise is dangerous and false.”
Still, the Wall Street Journal later said that Binance also helped build the tech behind $USD1, citing unnamed sources.
Asked about why he gave the pardon, Trump said, “A lot of people say that he wasn’t guilty of anything. And so I gave him a pardon at the request of a lot of very good people.”
Lobbyist payments and tokenized stocks return to headlines
At the same time, NBC News reported Binance had hired a lobbying firm called Checkmate Government Relations. It’s run by Charles McDowell, a friend of Donald Trump Jr.
The firm said it was paid $450,000 to lobby both the White House and the Treasury Department, pushing for “executive relief” and policy work related to crypto and financial services.
CZ denied any connection between the lobbying and the pardon. “There is a lot of media saying that there is some deal in place to get me the pardon. As far as I know, that does not exist at all.”
He also said he hasn’t spoken with Trump. “The closest that I got to him was today when he was doing the Board of Peace session. I was in the audience, about 30 to 40 feet away from him.”
While all that’s going on, Binance is looking to bring back tokenized stock trading, a feature it dropped in 2021. These stock tokens are blockchain-based representations of actual shares in companies like Apple or Microsoft, allowing people to buy smaller portions without owning a full share.
A Binance spokesperson allegedly told The Information, “Binance is committed to bridging traditional finance and crypto, expanding user choices while maintaining the highest regulatory standards. Since last year, we started supporting tokenized real-world assets, and we recently launched the first regulated TradFi perpetual contracts settled in stablecoin.”
They added, “Exploring the potential to offer tokenized equities is a natural next step in our mission to bring TradFi and crypto closer together as we continue to actively build infrastructure, partner with traditional institutions, and develop innovative solutions for our users and the industry.”
