Trump: Bloomberg and WSJ articles about WLFI and Binance were politically motivated

The Trump family has accused Bloomberg, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), and other media outlets of pushing a political agenda to undermine crypto.

In a statement posted on X Friday, the Trump-backed World Liberty Financial (WLFI) rejected claims made in recent reports, calling them unsubstantiated and aimed at damaging the industry.

“The unsubstantiated articles in the WSJ, Bloomberg, and elsewhere seem to be politically motivated and demonstrate a troubling pattern of agenda-driven journalism set on damaging the crypto industry,” WLFI posted.

“To set the facts straight: WLFI is a DeFi project with a tremendous mission to build and democratize a new financial system for the benefit of millions.”

WLFI urged the public to ignore clickbait, saying that instead of relying on mainstream media, people should wait for direct updates from the project itself. The company emphasized its commitment to blockchain, highlighting partnerships with leading organizations.

But WLFI wasn’t the only one pushing back against the reports—Binance CEO Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao also slammed WSJ and Bloomberg for their coverage.

CZ denies WSJ’s claims about Trump and Binance US

WSJ published an article claiming that Trump’s family was involved in financial discussions with Binance US and that CZ had been pushing for a presidential pardon after his legal troubles in the United States. The article further alleged that Binance had approached Trump allies last year in a bid to re-enter the US market after its regulatory battles.

The report said that the deal could have been facilitated through WLFI, the Trump-backed DeFi project launched in September 2024. It also mentioned Steve Witkoff, a longtime Trump associate and his chief Middle East and Ukraine negotiator, as one of the key figures involved in the discussions.

However, a Trump administration official dismissed these claims, saying that Witkoff was already divesting from his business interests and that WSJ failed to provide any evidence that the talks resulted in an actual deal.

CZ immediately fired back, rejecting the report and calling it completely false.

“Sorry to disappoint,” CZ wrote on X. “The WSJ article got the facts wrong. More than 20 people told me they were asked by WSJ (and another media) if they could confirm that I made some deal for a pardon. They probably asked hundreds of people to get 20 to reach out to me. They tried hard to make a story to report.”

He denied ever having discussions about a Binance US deal and questioned the timing and motivation behind the report.

“No felon would reject a pardon,” CZ said, emphasizing that he was the only person in US history to serve time for a single BSA charge. He suggested that the story was deliberately designed to attack Trump and crypto.

“Feels like the article is motivated as an attack on the President and crypto, and the residual forces of the ‘war on crypto’ from the last administration are still at work,” CZ added.

Bloomberg joins in, but CZ shuts it down

Shortly after WSJ’s report, Bloomberg published a similar article, making vague claims about Trump, WLFI, and Binance. But CZ wasn’t backing down.

“Bloomberg was the ‘another media’ in my earlier post,” he wrote. “They just published their baseless hit piece after WSJ, with statements like: ‘It’s not clear what stage the discussions have reached or whether they’ll result in any transactions or ventures.’”

He pointed out that Bloomberg’s own article admitted that the details were unclear, yet they published it anyway. “‘The substance of the meeting with Zhao isn’t clear.’ They basically admitted that their whole article is purely imaginary. Is this what ‘news’ has become?”

CZ also addressed the claims about WLFI, saying that he and Binance had no business relationship with the project or the people mentioned in the report.

“Fact: I/Binance have no business deals with WLFI or the people mentioned in their article. We also did not buy any of the WLFI coins,” he wrote.

He then reminded the public that Bloomberg has a history of false reports, citing a defamation lawsuit from July 2024.

“Bloomberg has done this before. Back in July 2024, they had to issue a formal apology after I sued them for defamation,” CZ wrote.

The lawsuit stemmed from a 2022 article in Bloomberg Businessweek’s Chinese edition, which falsely claimed that CZ was running a Ponzi scheme.

“In our 250th issue (July 6, 2022), we made the egregious mistake of publishing a cover page with a headline that was false and baseless,” Bloomberg wrote in its apology.

“We were wrong to write ‘Changpeng Zhao’s Ponzi Scheme.’ We retract and withdraw this offensive statement without reservation and apologize unreservedly for any harm or distress caused to Mr. Zhao and Binance.”

WLFI sees $124M in unrealized losses but continues investing

Meanwhile, WLFI’s on-chain data shows that its portfolio is deep in the red. According to Lookonchain, the project has an unrealized loss of $124 million across nine tokens.

Despite the losses, WLFI continues to invest heavily, purchasing 541,783 SEI tokens on Thursday using $100,000 in USDC.

The nine tokens in the WLFI portfolio are:

• Ethereum (ETH)
• Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC)
• Tron (TRX)
• Chainlink (LINK)
• Aave (AAVE)
• Ethena (ENA)
• Movement (MOVE)
• Ondo Finance (ONDO)
• Sei (SEI)

The biggest losses came from ETH, which is down $93.6 million. On March 6, WLFI tripled its ETH holdings within a week, now holding $11.2 million more than before. But ETH’s price dropped 13%, adding $1.92 million to WLFI’s losses.

Other losses came from wBTC, AAVE, LINK, and ENA, each wiping out over $3 million from WLFI’s balance sheet. LINK took the biggest hit, dropping 18% from $17.6 on March 7.

Last week, WLFI added $10 million in Wrapped Bitcoin and $1.5 million in Movement Network (MOVE) tokens to its treasury. But MOVE has since plummeted 10.5%, now trading at $0.47.

In February, WLFI moved its entire crypto treasury to Coinbase Prime for treasury management.

“To be clear, we are not selling tokens,” WLFI posted on X. “We are simply reallocating assets for ordinary business purposes.”

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