Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao, widely known as CZ, publicly asked Elon Musk to stop trolling the exchange as it grappled with what appears to be the largest cryptocurrency theft in history.
Recall that hackers siphoned roughly $6.3 billion from Binance-linked wallets across multiple blockchains this week, prompting an investigation and rapid response from the platform.
Musk in response to the situation, engaged with the unfolding situation on X through pointed comments and emojis. He posted “Everyday is Zeroday” and replied with grimacing, laughing, and fire emojis under posts related to the breach and security warnings from CZ.
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Zhao in response to the comment, expressed his displeasure. He wrote,
“Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but this is a bad time to troll. Please stop. 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!”
The SPCX shares trace back to Binance’s $500 million contribution to Musk’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, later rebranded as X. Through subsequent corporate moves including xAI’s involvement with X and SpaceX’s acquisition of xAI, the stake became tied to SpaceX shares.
SpaceX went public on Nasdaq earlier in 2026, and CZ valued Binance’s related holding at more than $1 billion at the time of his message.
In follow-up comments, Zhao provided rough math on the financial impact: an estimated $6 billion-plus loss, around $3 billion in frozen assets, and more than $1 billion available through Binance’s Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU).
This left a remaining gap of roughly $2 billion that the SpaceX-linked stake could help address, though he described the overall shortfall as still painful but manageable.
Binance co-founder Yi He later stated that the company’s annual revenue was sufficient to cover losses without needing to sell the SpaceX shares. Binance also indicated it had reserved more than $6 billion in company funds related to the incident and affirmed it would make users whole.
The exchange between the two high-profile figures highlighted the overlapping business interests linking Binance’s earlier investment in the Twitter deal to the current SpaceX valuation.
In updates shared through official channels, Binance stated that it has already secured $5 billion of those reserved funds in the exact token assets affected, including USDC, USDT, BTC, ETH, and BNB.
The remaining amount is being acquired through market purchases and over-the-counter channels to ensure precise matching of user balances.
These company reserves do not include roughly $3 billion in stolen assets that have been frozen so far through cooperation with law enforcement, blockchain intelligence firms, asset issuers, and industry partners such as Tether and Circle.
Binance has repeatedly emphasized that user funds remain safe and that all confirmed losses will be covered through its Secure Asset Fund for Users (SAFU) and corporate treasury.
The exchange paused withdrawals as a precaution while deposits and other platform services continued operating. Technical teams have targeted a phased resumption of withdrawals once security checks are complete, with earlier timelines pointing to a start within roughly 34 to 45 hours of the initial updates.
An initial Proof of Reserves snapshot was planned, with full results expected around Monday, November 2, to provide public verification of reserves. Preliminary findings pointed to a compromised DevOps engineer’s laptop that may have enabled access to internal systems for unauthorized withdrawals.
Subsequent investigation revealed additional points of breach in what Binance described as a complex attack. The company has stated it found no evidence of private key leaks from wallets and has revoked affected authorizations.
Blockchain analysts have noted similarities to prior incidents attributed to North Korean-linked groups, though official attribution remains under investigation. Binance continues working with partners to trace and recover additional funds while conducting a full security review.
In public statements, the exchange has committed to ongoing transparent updates and affirmed its intention to weather the incident, underscoring that the frozen and reserved amounts represent a limited portion of overall user assets and platform reserves.
Outlook
Binance’s decision to absorb the financial impact through its corporate treasury, SAFU reserves and existing investments also highlights the importance of maintaining sufficient financial buffers against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks.
However, covering customer losses does not necessarily eliminate the reputational damage or address questions surrounding the vulnerabilities that allowed the incident to occur.
For the wider cryptocurrency industry, the breach could intensify calls for stronger cybersecurity frameworks, independent security audits, improved employee access controls and greater regulatory oversight.
The reported involvement of a compromised employee device also underscores how human and internal security vulnerabilities can expose even well-capitalised platforms to significant risks