Watch Live: GameStop Hearing On Market Manipulation
Jonathan Ponciano, 18 February 2021
A Congressional hearing into the GameStop mania that triggered the largest weekly selloff since late October is underway, with some of the key players in the saga—billionaire Citadel CEO Kenneth Griffin, Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev, Reddit Cofounder Steve Huffman and the 34-year-old securities broker behind the Roaring Kitty online persona—all set to testify.
Committee Chair Maxine Waters (D-Mo.) kicked off the hearing by asking Tenev whether he misled investors on January 28 when he denied that Robinhood had a liquidity problem despite raising more than $3 billion in the following days to meet reserve requirements from the Securities & Exchange Commission.
“We always felt comfortable with our liquidity,” Tenev responded, dodging requests from Waters and other committee members for a simple yes-or-no answer.
Griffin, meanwhile, said he learned of Robinhood’s trading restrictions on meme stocks only after they were first imposed, throwing cold water on online speculation that Robinhood and Citadel coordinated on the decision beforehand.
