Trump Pardons Convicted Binance Founder Changpeng Zhao, White House Confirms

The former CEO in 2023 entered a guilty plea and agreed to step down as the CEO of Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement.

Zhao Changpeng, founder and former CEO of Binance, speaks during an event in Athens, Greece, on Nov. 25, 2022. Costas Baltas /File Photo/ Reuters

President Donald Trump pardoned convicted Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who pleaded guilty two years ago to money laundering while in charge of the large cryptocurrency company, the White House said on Oct. 23.

“President Trump exercised his constitutional authority by issuing a pardon for Mr. Zhao, who was prosecuted by the Biden Administration in their war on cryptocurrency. In their desire to punish the cryptocurrency industry, the Biden Administration pursued Mr. Zhao despite no allegations of fraud or identifiable victims,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to The Epoch Times.

In November 2023, Zhao entered a guilty plea and agreed to step down as the CEO of Binance as part of a $4.3 billion settlement between the cryptocurrency exchange and the Department of Justice, it said.

Zhao was sentenced to four months in jail in April 2024, while prosecutors had sought a three-year prison term, and he has already served his time in prison.

Zhao, who is sometimes called “CZ,” told a podcast in April this year that he formally applied for a pardon from the Trump administration

“We only submitted after the Bloomberg article and The Wall Street Journal article came out,” he said, referring to articles that said he was looking to receive pardons from the administration. “And I was like, ‘Well, if they are writing this article, we might as well officially apply.’”

In a March post on X, he responded to reports about a possible pardon by writing that “no felon would mind a pardon, especially being the only one in U.S. history who was ever sentenced to prison for a single BSA charge,” referring to the Bank Secrecy Act.

Zhao’s pardon is the latest in a series that Trump has issued for former executives. Earlier this year, the president pardoned the founders of crypto exchange BitMEX in connection with similar anti-money laundering violations, and the founder of electric truck company Nikola, who was convicted of fraud. He has also commuted the sentence of the executive of the now-defunct startup Ozy Media.

Several days ago, Trump issued a pardon for former Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.), who had been sentenced to 87 months in prison for identity theft and wire fraud.

“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump wrote on his social media platform on Oct. 17. He added that he had “just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, immediately.”

“Good luck George, have a great life!” the president said in the post.

After he left prison, Santos told NewsNation that he wants to repay his fraud victims.

“Morally, it’s the correct thing to do. My legal team is working to find out avenues. You can’t just nilly willy start, go up to people and say, ‘Oh, here’s a check,’” Santos told the channel earlier this week. “There needs to be an official mechanism and an avenue to do so.”

When taking office in January, Trump also pardoned around 1,500 individuals who were convicted on federal charges in connection to the breach at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Reuters contributed to this report.