CZ tells Elon Musk it is a "bad time to troll" and says Binance's shares from its $500 million Twitter bet are now worth more than $1 billion

The Binance theft spilled into a public exchange between two of the best-known names in tech and crypto. Elon Musk replied to a post about Binance's losses with a grimacing emoji, and Binance co-founder Changpeng Zhao answered him directly on X on Friday, Decrypt reports. "Elon, have a lot of respect for you, but bad time to troll. Please stop," Zhao wrote.

Zhao added that Binance's SPCX shares, which he said came from its $500 million investment in Musk's Twitter takeover, are now worth more than $1 billion, and asked Musk for a little support. CoinDesk also reported Zhao's claim about the shares' value. In a follow-up, Zhao said he had never suggested selling them and was only pointing to funds Binance has available. The value is Zhao's own figure.

Binance co-founder Yi He weighed in too, saying the company's annual revenue is enough to cover the losses, so it does not yet need to sell the SpaceX shares, according to Decrypt. Zhao, who says he no longer manages Binance, wrote on Thursday that he expects user funds to be fully recovered, Forbes reports. Binance says it has reserved more than $6.34 billion to cover the theft.