Forbes: “Binance founder richer than Bill Gates”… CZ issues “direct rebuttal”

Changpeng Zhao (CZ), founder of Binance, has issued a direct rebuttal to a Forbes report estimating his wealth.

In a post on X, Zhao said on the 11th (local time) that “Forbes’ (wealth) estimate was way off.” He added, “For example, Forbes estimated the net worth of ByteDance founder Zhang Yiming at $69 billion, even though its annual revenue is estimated at $150 billion,” and continued, “(By contrast) it estimated the net worth of Binance’s founder at $110 billion, even though its annual revenue is estimated at $5 billion.” ByteDance is the parent company of the global video platform TikTok.

Earlier, Forbes reported the previous day (the 10th) that Zhao’s wealth was estimated at $110 billion. That figure represents a $47 billion jump from Forbes’ estimate of his wealth last year. Forbes said, “Zhao is currently the 17th richest person in the world,” adding that “he is richer than Bill Gates.”

Forbes cited Binance as the main factor behind the surge in Zhao’s wealth. It said, “The enterprise value of Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, is estimated at around $100 billion,” adding, “According to publicly available legal filings, Zhao (the founder) owns about 90% of Binance.”

On this, Zhao said, “If I claim I have a lot of wealth, Forbes could instead mark it down or even exclude me from the (billionaires) list,” adding, “because (Forbes) always prefers to estimate the other way around.”