Elon Musk vs. CZ: Feud Erupts After Record $6.4B Binance Hack

Binance founder CZ told Elon Musk to stop mocking his crypto exchange after hackers stole a record $6.4 billion.

The world's largest crypto exchange just suffered the biggest theft in crypto history — and it sparked a public spat between two billionaires.

Binance (one of the biggest platforms where people buy and sell cryptocurrency) was hacked on October 29. Thieves stole at least $6.4 billion in digital money across several blockchains (the online networks where crypto transactions are recorded). This is the largest crypto theft ever recorded.

The drama started when Elon Musk posted a grimacing emoji in response to the news, seeming to mock Binance. Another user then compared the situation to FTX — a rival exchange that collapsed in 2022 after claiming it had enough money to cover its losses.

Binance's co-founder Changpeng Zhao (known as "CZ") fired back, asking Musk to stop "trolling." He reminded Musk that Binance owns over $1 billion in SpaceX shares (ownership stakes in Musk's rocket company), from a $500 million investment made during Musk's Twitter takeover.

Key facts about the hack:

$6.4 billion stolen — the largest crypto theft ever
Binance holds about $144 billion in customer assets (money it looks after for users)
The exchange reserved $6.34 billion of its own funds to cover the losses
Companies behind stablecoins (crypto designed to stay at $1) froze $2.39 billion of the stolen funds

Binance co-CEO Yi He joked that the company's yearly earnings are enough to cover the losses — so it won't need to sell its SpaceX shares. CZ later clarified he never suggested selling them; he was just showing Musk that Binance has plenty of money.

Who did it? Analytics firms TRM Labs and Chainalysis blamed TraderTraitor, a hacking group linked to North Korea. The same group was blamed for the $1.5 billion Bybit hack in early 2025.

The takeaway: While Binance insists it can absorb the massive loss, the incident highlights a key weakness in crypto — some stolen funds (like Ethereum) can't be frozen, making recovery much harder.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://decrypt.co/382236/elon-musk-cz-trade-blows-spacex-shares-binance-hack