Webull Stock Drops 18% on Congressional China-Ties Report — SkimNews
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- House Select Committee on China found in a bipartisan report that Webull is "tied in structural ways" to China's government, representing a national security risk to U.S. finance and exposing a "profound gap" between its "American company" marketing and actual control.
- Webull holds $24.6 billion in customer assets across 28 million global users and 18 markets; the committee said concerns "escalated" since October 2025, when the firm began carrying customer cash directly — creating what it called "structural exposure of billions of dollars in American capital."
- Webull's stock dropped 18% in morning Nasdaq trading after the report's release.
- Webull's corporate structure includes a Cayman Islands holding company, Singapore-based Webull Technologies Pte. Ltd, and mainland China subsidiary Hunan Weibu, which has grown to 863 employees — 62% of the company's global workforce; the firm traces its origins to Chinese company Hunan Fumi Information Technology, founded in 2016 by former Alibaba and Xiaomi manager Wang Anquan.
- The committee alleges Webull initially told investigators it "does not have any offices or employees based in the PRC" and that "all Firm employees are located in the United States" — a claim the report calls a misrepresentation.
- Webull disputed the findings, calling the report "deeply disappointing" and saying it contains "significant inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions" that the committee published without ever seeking clarification; the firm said its U.S. business runs from St. Petersburg, Florida and New York City, with U.S. customer data stored domestically.
- Rep. John Moolenaar (R-Mich.), the committee's chair, said Webull's "China-based operations put American investors and their data at risk" and urged investors to "heed this information when choosing who they do business with."
Why it matters: With $24.6 billion in customer assets and 28 million users, Webull is a material U.S. retail-brokerage platform, and the 18% stock drop shows immediate investor concern. The October 2025 shift to directly carrying customer cash raised the stakes: the committee argues billions in American capital now sit inside a corporate architecture subject to Chinese government data-access laws.
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