While lawmakers were discussing Twitter during a House Judiciary Select Subcommittee hearing on the weaponization of the federal government, Rep. Stacey Plaskett (D-U.S. Virgin Islands) alluded to Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the CEO of Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, who also owns a stake in Twitter. Plaskett said that although CZ is a Canadian citizen, he is a “Chinese national.” Crypto influencer and analyst Chris Blec and CZ himself said on Twitter that Plaskett's comments implied racism and discrimination.
"House Democrat @StaceyPlaskett engages in anti-Asian discrimination by not-so-subtly accusing Canadian citizen @cz_binance of being a CCP (Chinese Communist Party) asset," Blec wrote in a March 9 Twitter post.
During the hearing on March 9, Plaskett questioned author and journalist Michael Shellenberger about Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, according to a video of the proceedings. Plaskett asked Shellenberger if he was aware that one individual who owns a portion of Twitter is also the owner of crypto exchange Binance. Plaskett said, “While he has Canadian citizenship, he is a Chinese national. Were you aware of that?” Shellenberger said he had not been aware of that fact.
CZ said in a tweet that Plaskett is “wrong about the facts.” He said he moved from China to Canada when he was 12 years old and has not been a Chinese citizen for more than 30 years. He added that he has never been a member of the CCP and noted that all crypto exchanges, including Binance, have been banned in China since 2017.
Maclean's reported that CZ was born in China, but his family moved to Canada in 1989, following the Tiananmen Square protests. CZ worked a variety of part-time jobs as a teen, including at McDonald's and a Chevron gas station, before enrolling at McGill University, where he majored in computer science.
CZ also recently criticized Forbes for mentioning his ethnicity in an article, “as if that mattered.”
The focus of the House Judiciary Select Subcommittee hearing was the so-called "Twitter Files," which were reports released by journalists detailing the government's efforts to engage in content moderation on the social media platform, The Hill reported.
