No one is safe from Elon Musk’s trolling. Not even his own shareholders.
Musk set his sights on Binance cofounder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao on Thursday after hackers breached the cryptocurrency trading platform.
Earlier that day, Binance said it was investigating a potential security breach and that hackers siphoned away as much as $6.3 billion. Binance initially said the breach may have involved a staffer’s compromised laptop, but later said the “complex attack” went beyond that. Two cryptocurrency tracing firms have linked the attack to TraderTraitor, a North Korean hacking group.
While Binance users panicked and crypto markets wavered, Musk, who has tangled online with the Binance cofounder before, couldn’t resist. In a post, CZ told an X user that Binance would cover all the losses from the hacking incident, prompting another user to compare Binance to the now-bankrupt FTX. FTX was one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world before its founder, Sam Bankman-Fried, was arrested and charged with fraud.
Musk responded with the grimacing face emoji, which earned a reaction from CZ.
“Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop,” CZ said. “Our SPCX shares (from our $500m investment in your Twitter takeover) are worth more than a billion. Would appreciate if you show a little support. Thanks!”
Musk, however, did not stop.
Less than an hour later, Musk commented the laughing face and fire emojis under a post CZ made on October 28 warning against phishing emails and computer viruses. CZ responded to Musk on that post as well.
“I wish everyone followed that advice. The hack is more complex than that, but all hacks generally have a compromised device (or algorithm) at some point,” he said.
Binance said Friday that it has begun recovering users’ assets affected by the breach. The trading platform said it is also working with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, industry partners, and issuers to recover additional funds.
“Binance has already reserved over $6.34B of company funds to cover this incident. $5B of these funds are already held in the exact token assets that were impacted. We are completing the purchase of the remaining amount by buying token assets through market channels and OTC channels,” Binance said in a statement on X.
Binance said those figures don’t include frozen or protected assets, which are subject to recovery and verification.
“We will weather this storm,” the statement said.
