Even the president’s biggest supporters can’t get behind his most recent pardon.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump wiped the criminal record of crypto billionaire and Binance exchange founder Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, who was sentenced to four months in prison last year on charges related to money laundering. Trump claimed that the Chinese-born Canadian founder was a victim of political prosecution by the Biden administration.
But the news was not well received in MAGAworld. One of Trump’s wealthiest supporters, Texas-based venture capitalist and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, wrote on X that the pardons suggested “massive fraud.”
“I love President Trump; this is possibly the greatest admin of my lifetime—except for these pardons,” Lonsdale posted Thursday. “If I’m calling balls and strikes, these are hit-by-pitches!! POTUS has been terribly advised on this; it makes it look like massive fraud is happening around him in this area.”
In separate posts, Lonsdale explained that his comment was an attempt to “influence future policy in a positive direction,” and that he also disagreed with Trump’s decision to pardon another white collar criminal, Nikola CEO Trevor Milton.
Zhao and Trump’s family are financially tied. The presidential family’s main crypto company, World Liberty Financial, has generated some $4.5 billion since the 2024 election thanks in large part to a partnership with PancakeSwap, an online exchange platform administered by Zhao’s Binance, The Wall Street Journal reported in August.
But either Trump must think Americans are terrifically stupid to not see the connection, or he’s suffering from serious mental lapses. During a press conference on Thursday, the president played dumb about Zhao, claiming he couldn’t recall the name of the person he had pardoned the day before.
“I don’t know, he was recommended by a lot of people, a lot of people say—are you talking about the crypto person?” Trump told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “A lot of people say he wasn’t guilty of anything.… You don’t know much about crypto. You know nothing about nothing. You’re fake news.”
“I don’t know him, I don’t believe I ever met him, but I’ve been told—a lot of support, he had a lot of support,” Trump said.
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