Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao asked Elon Musk to stop trolling during the exchange’s hack crisis on Oct. 30, citing SpaceX shares he valued at more than $1 billion as he appealed for support. Fellow co-founder Yi He subsequently said Binance did not yet need to sell those shares to cover the losses.
“Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop,” Zhao wrote as @cz_binance, before asking Musk to show support.
Musk, posting as @elonmusk, had used a grimacing-face emoji earlier in the exchange.
Zhao called the holding “our SPCX shares,” linked it to a $500 million investment in Musk’s Twitter takeover and said it was worth more than a billion dollars. That ownership, valuation and investment connection remain Zhao’s account.
Yi He, posting as @heyibinance, said the company’s revenue for the year was sufficient to cover the losses, so it did “not yet need to sell” the SpaceX shares.
Zhao then explained his reference to the shares in a reply to her: he was showing Musk funds he might recognize so he could be less worried.
Binance later gave a separate funding update, saying it had reserved more than $6 billion of company funds to cover the incident.
In another post describing his “rough math,” Zhao weighed the hack losses against frozen assets, the Secure Asset Fund for Users, or SAFU, and the estimated SPCX holding. He described the remaining gap as painful but manageable.
Revenue over a year is different from funds available at a particular moment. An estimated equity value is different from cash, while frozen stolen assets still have to be recovered.
SpaceX shares and Binance’s funding commitment
In its later Oct. 30 funding statement, @binance said $5 billion of the company funds it had reserved was already held in the exact token assets affected. It said it was purchasing the remainder through market and over-the-counter channels.
Binance said that process could take longer because some tokens had low liquidity and over-the-counter settlement took time. The purchases were intended to match the affected token assets and address shortfalls, according to the company.
Binance expressly separated those figures from frozen or protected assets. It reported $3 billion frozen, while saying those assets remained subject to ongoing recovery and verification. That distinction keeps the company’s funding commitment separate from the outcome of efforts to retrieve stolen assets.
Explore the two accounts
CZ cited a holding and explained his reference; Yi He said annual revenue meant shares need not yet be sold.
Binance described reserved company funds, affected-token purchases and a separate pool of frozen assets.
The founders’ posts announced no SpaceX sale; Binance separately described company funds and token purchases.
Holding value, revenue adequacy and reserved funds are attributed claims, not independently verified accounting. Frozen assets are not recovered funds. No ownership-conversion mechanism is established.
CryptoSlate’s earlier breach coverage reported that Binance had identified additional breach points and pledged to cover losses through SAFU and corporate resources.
For users assessing that assurance, Binance’s stated progress in obtaining the affected tokens is more directly relevant than the estimated value of the shares.
