{"id":23765,"date":"2025-05-08T10:12:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T07:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/binance-founder-seeks-pardon-from-trump\/"},"modified":"2025-05-08T10:12:32","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T07:12:32","slug":"binance-founder-seeks-pardon-from-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/binance-founder-seeks-pardon-from-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"Binance Founder Seeks Pardon from Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and former CEO of Binance, confirmed on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2025-03-13\/trump-crypto-venture-has-talked-to-binance-about-doing-business\">Farohk Radio<\/a> podcast that he has submitted a pardon request to U.S. President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n<p>This occurred two weeks ago.<\/p>\n<p>In September 2024, CZ <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/binance-founder-released-ahead-of-schedule\">was released<\/a>. The entrepreneur <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/changpeng-zhao-begins-prison-sentence-in-california\">served<\/a> a four-month sentence on charges of money laundering and other illegal activities. As part of an agreement with the U.S. Department of Justice, he agreed to pay a $50 million fine and step down as the exchange&#8217;s CEO.<\/p>\n<p>In March, Bloomberg and <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/wsj-trumps-family-considered-acquiring-stake-in-binance-us\">WSJ<\/a> published articles claiming that Zhao was seeking a pardon amid discussions of business deals with the Trump family. CZ <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/cz_binance\/status\/1900194883891322948\">denied<\/a> the journalists&#8217; claims.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cSorry to disappoint. The WSJ article misrepresented the facts,\u201d Zhao wrote at the time.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>However, he admitted that the news articles prompted him and his lawyers to request a pardon.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIf they are writing this article, we might as well officially submit a request,\u201d Zhao commented.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>He emphasized that he took this step only after the newspaper publications.<\/p>\n<p>CZ also stated that he is not interested in returning as Binance&#8217;s CEO. Before his release from prison, the exchange <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/binance-permanently-removes-changpeng-zhao-from-management\">permanently barred<\/a> him from management. However, the current CEO of the platform, Richard Teng, noted that Zhao remains its largest shareholder.<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in March, Trump <a href=\"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/news\/trump-pardons-bitmex-co-founders-reports-say\">pardoned<\/a> three BitMEX co-founders\u2014Arthur Hayes, Benjamin Delo, and Samuel Reed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changpeng Zhao (CZ), the founder and former CEO of Binance, confirmed on the Farohk Radio podcast that he has submitted a pardon request to U.S. President Donald Trump. This occurred two weeks ago. In September 2024, CZ was released. The entrepreneur served a four-month sentence on charges of money laundering and other illegal activities. As [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"select":"","news_style_id":"","cryptorium_level":"","_short_excerpt_text":"","creation_source":"","_metatest_mainpost_news_update":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[744,935,26],"class_list":["post-23765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-binance","tag-changpeng-zhao","tag-usa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"views":"115","promo_type":"","layout_type":"","short_excerpt":"","is_update":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forklog.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}