The founder and CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao – a.k.a. CZ – has recently disclosed the reasons why he and his firm opted to support Elon Musk’s decision to acquire Twitter in what was considered a surprising move for someone whose interests are typically confined to web3 initiatives.

In a tweet published on 27 October, CZ confirmed that he wired $500 million to Elon a few days before the deadline set by the Delaware court for Elon to complete the acquisition expired.

Since then, the head of one of the world’s largest crypto exchanges have been sharing the reasons why he opted to support Musk in this particular deal.

CZ Says Number One Reason for Backing Elon is Support for Free Speech

During the latest Web Summit event held in Lisbon, CZ pointed to his love for Twitter as one of the reasons why he decided to invest in the company as he often uses the social media platform more than he uses Binance as he is not an active trader.

He went on to categorize Twitter as a global town hall where anybody going from politicians to crypto enthusiasts can share their ideas and thoughts about any particular subject and often be heard by people they couldn’t otherwise meet.

“Number one, we want to be extremely supportive of free speech. As a business, we are helping to increase the freedom of money, and free speech comes before freedom of money, so we need to help maintain free speech”, the founder of Binance told the audience.

In addition, the crypto billionaire commented that he is a full-on supporter of free speech and that Twitter has been a crucial puzzle piece for web2 and could become a great example of how popular apps of the legacy internet can turn into decentralized platforms when the management is up for it.

“We aim to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology”. CZ commented in an e-mailed statement sent to Business Insider.

Binance is Not Looking to Make a Quick Buck

When asked about Binance’s investment horizon when it comes to its Twitter investment, CZ commented that he and his company have a long-term view when it comes to that kind of partnership.

However, he mentioned that Elon may take the company public once again in the future once its finances and product are in better shape.

“We’re very long term investors so we anticipate to be involved in the next 10 to 50 to 100 years. We’re not bothered by short term; we don’t care about that”, the founder of Binance told the Web Summit audience.

He added: “We care about long-term potential for the platform, and with Twitter plus Elon? Independently, they have a lot of potential, but combined, there is such high potential. Ten to 20 years from now, we’re very confident that this will be a much stronger platform than Twitter yesterday”.

In regards to the future of the platform, CZ commented that he and his team trust Elon’s ability to make Twitter a better place by executing his vision for the social media platform. “We rely on Elon to run it, which is great”, he emphasized

Other Prominent Backers of Elon’s Twitter Deal

Binance committed these $500 million back on 4 May this year when Musk announced his intentions to move forward with an acquisition that valued the social media platform at $54.20 per share or $44 billion.

Other prominent backers of the transaction included the founder of Oracle (ORCL), Lawrence J. Ellison, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, and the Qatar sovereign investment fund.

In total, the SEC filing indicates that equity partners committed to contributing approximately $9 billion to finance the deal. In addition, Musk was granted a margin loan from Morgan Stanley of $6.25 billion.

The final figures contributed by each party may have changed throughout the completion of the acquisition. Meanwhile, Musk provided a large portion of the financing required by selling a large number of Tesla (TSLA) shares.