Robinhood's CEO says he got advice from Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk during the GameStop PR crisis
Robinhood was one of the main platforms investors from Reddit forum Wall Street Bets used to fuel a short squeeze on GameStop in January 2021.
But the platform suspended buying of the stock and other meme stocks, prompting regulatory scrutiny and a spotlight on Robinhood's ties to Citadel Securities, its largest market-making partner by volume.
The scrutiny intensified after Citadel — a separate hedge fund under the same corporate umbrella — invested $2.75 billion to rescue Melvin Capital, which suffered heavy losses from trying to short GameStop.
"A bunch of people that probably wouldn't have given me the time of day were offering to get on calls and help me navigate this whole situation," Vlad Tenev told John Collison, cofounder and president of online payment provider Stripe, in an episode of the "Cheeky Pint" podcast on Wednesday.
Tenev said Zuckerberg told him he might be able to help, as he also had, in the words of the Robinhood CEO, his "share of PR issues."
"We workshopped some stuff," Tenev said, adding that he also connected with Musk through Antonio Gracias, founder, chief executive, and chief investment officer of Chicago-based Valor Equity Partners.
He described Musk as "very intense."
"He's like, 'You're being an asshole to the people. What you've gotta do is full transparency, 100% put it all out there, play-by-play, full transparency'," Tenev said of his conversation with the Tesla CEO.
He added that he texted Musk after the rest of his calls to ask if he wanted to interview him on Clubhouse, the social-media app that blew up around the same time.
Tenev recalled thinking: "I've got this crazy idea. How about I just go on the Clubhouse and we lay it all on the line?"
During the interview, three days after Robinhood's trade suspension, Musk grilled Tenev for 90 minutes, asking why the fintech firm limited trading. Tenev responded that Robinhood had to comply with regulations.
Robinhood, Meta, and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment for Business Insider.
Tenev said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff also helped him, but didn't describe the interaction beyond saying Benioff was "very nice."
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