Binance's CZ Says 'Shark Tank' Star Kevin O'Leary Is 'Liar' Making 'Nonsense Claims' About FTX Collapse

Binance CEO and co-founder Changpeng Zhao, known popularly as "CZ", blasted Canadian investor and businessman Kevin O’Leary as a "liar".

What Happened: At a senate hearing on Wednesday, O'Leary accused Binance of leveraging the FTX scandal to gain a global monopoly by putting FTX FTT/USD out of business. He cited Sam Bankman-Fried's purchase of FTX shares from Binance as evidence of some money being transferred to Binance.

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"How concerned are you that the money given to you by @SBF_FTX will be clawed back? Are you prepared to hand it back to creditors if they were to ask?" @andrewrsorkin asks @cz_binance: pic.twitter.com/nffAzVinHe

— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) December 15, 2022

In response to O'Leary's accusations, Zhao said he was taken aback by the remarks. “Kevin O’Leary is making a bunch of nonsense claims. They don’t make sense, they don’t make any logic.”

In the interview, Zhao was asked if Binance was prepared to return the $2.1 billion payment it received from FTX when it exited its 2019 Series A investment to bankruptcy trustees. Zhao noted that Binance was “financially ok” and confidently referred such matters to their “perfectly capable” lawyers to take care of. 

In November, FTX declared bankruptcy with more than $10 billion in liabilities. This news came shortly after SBF's arrest by Bahamian authorities for charges such as wire fraud, conspiracy, securities fraud, securities fraud conspiracy, and money laundering.

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Photo by Web Summit on Flickr