Webull shares plunge 20% as House panel brands China ties a national security risk
Webull shares fell about 20% on Wednesday after the bipartisan House Select Committee on China released a report finding the brokerage's ownership, technology and data flows remain "tied in structural ways" to China.
Webull shares fell about 20% on Wednesday after a bipartisan House Select Committee on China report found the online brokerage’s ownership structure, technology infrastructure, personnel, data flows, corporate financing and compliance systems remain “tied in structural ways” to China, posing national security risks to investors’ data and assets (Barron’s, New York Post).
The committee said its concerns had “escalated” since October 2025, when Webull began carrying customer cash directly — exposing “billions of dollars in American capital”. Webull holds about $24.6 billion in customer assets and reports roughly 28 million users globally (the Post’s figure; Barron’s cites 28.2 million registered users at the end of June). The committee also reported the firm runs a technology branch in Singapore and a subsidiary in mainland China, and warned its “critical backend systems, personnel and data flows may remain exposed to the Chinese Communist Party’s mandatory intelligence laws and coercive demands”.
Webull rejected the findings outright. A spokesperson said the report contained “significant inaccuracies and unsupported conclusions” and was published “without ever seeking clarification from Webull”, adding that the US business is conducted from its global headquarters in St Petersburg, Florida and its New York office, with US customer data stored in the US.
The firm, founded in 2016 by Anquan Wang, previously of Alibaba, is incorporated in the Cayman Islands and went public in April 2025 via a SPAC merger. This is not the first scrutiny of its China links: the same committee requested information about Webull’s ties to Chinese entities in 2024.
Siebert Financial analyst Brian Vieten suspended his Buy rating on Webull on Wednesday morning, saying the regulatory and operational implications of the findings created “a level of uncertainty that we cannot reasonably incorporate into our estimates or valuation at this time”. The stock’s plunge — 18% by the Post’s count, 20% by Barron’s — puts it on pace for its largest percentage fall since April 17, 2025, when it dropped 27.3%. The shares are down 91% from their all-time closing high of $62.90 on April 14, 2025.
Sources: Barron’s / CNBC · New York Post · Investor’s Business Daily · MarketWatch
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