The House Select Committee on CCP of the United States recently pointed out that Webull Securities made false statements regarding its China connections. The latest internal chat records revealed that an employee, possibly located in China, participated in discussions about the approval of American client accounts, raising concerns about the security of Webull’s customer data.
On Tuesday, October 20th, the House Select Committee on CCP released a press release titled “Facts about Webull’s Relationship with China,” stating that Webull Securities had made “multiple false statements” regarding its business operations and interactions with the committee following the release of an investigation report on October 7th.
According to CNBC’s report on Wednesday, October 21st, the committee obtained internal Microsoft Teams chat records from Webull in 2021, showing that an employee, likely in China at the time, was involved in discussions regarding the approval of U.S. client accounts. In one conversation, Brendan Fuller, Webull’s U.S. Brokerage Business Manager, mentioned that a trading account was approved by a member of the Chinese team and a member of the U.S. team.
Webull had previously stated that U.S. client data is stored in the U.S., with access limited to domestic employees. The committee stated that these chat records raised doubts about Webull’s claims.
The conversation involved Brendan Fuller, Webull’s U.S. Brokerage Business Manager, and employee Zhenghan Wang. Based on the chat timestamps corresponding to Beijing daytime working hours and Wang’s use of Simplified Chinese translation features, the committee concluded that Wang was likely in China at the time and had access to U.S. client data.
Faced with these chat records, Webull did not directly address the question of whether Wang could access U.S. client data in 2021. The company reiterated that U.S. client data is stored on Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers in Virginia and Oregon, with access limited to domestic employees, and that U.S. brokerage operations are entirely overseen by domestic personnel.
The committee emphasized that the issue is not where the data is stored, but rather who can access it and control the systems handling the data. The committee also pointed out that Webull’s affiliated company, Webull Technologies Limited, had previously used Tencent Cloud to store some user data, but Webull has not specified which data was involved or when they ceased using it.
On October 7th, the committee released a bipartisan investigative report stating that Webull’s business practices put American investor data at risk of surveillance in China. The report also highlighted that Webull is controlled by executives affiliated with China, and its subsidiary in China received subsidies and cash rewards from Chinese government departments.
Webull was founded by Chinese entrepreneur Anquan Wang, primarily serving individual American investors with approximately 28 million users worldwide. Following the committee’s formal investigation report release on October 7th, Webull’s stock price temporarily dropped by over 19%.