Who is Robinhood CEO Vladimir Tenev?

BILLIONAIRE Elon Musk has urged Robinhood co-founder Vladimir Tenev to "spill the beans, man" over the Reddit trading frenzy.

Robinhood has lined up $3.4billion amid a spike in trading on Wall Street fueled by small investors driving up shares in GameStop and other stocks.

Who is Robinhood co-CEO Vladimir Tenev?

Vlad Tenev, 35, is the co-founder and co-CEO of Robinhood, a fast-growing online brokerage.

His wife is Celina Tenev, who went to Stanford University for four years at the School of Medicine, as a postdoctoral fellow.

According to Gulf News, her LinkedIn profile shows that she is the co-founder of a company providing on-demand emergency care, Call9.

Tenev has been quoting saying of Celina that she makes him “better with each passing day”.

They have a daughter, Nora.

Tenev set up the Robinhood no-fee stock trading app with long-time pal, Baiju Bhatt.

But Fox Business writes that Tevev has "gone from a celebrated figure to a hated target" in the wake of the January 2021 Wall Street trading shambles.

Vladimir Tenev was born in Varna, Bulgaria, and his World Bank parents migrated to the US when he was five.

Robinhood co-founders Tenev and Indian American Baiju Bhatt met at Stanford University, where they were roommates and classmates.

Tenev gained a mathematics degree at Stanford before continuing his education at UCLA, but dropped out of his PhD in mathematics to start a firm with Bhatt.

"After graduating, they packed their bags for New York City and built two finance companies, selling their own trading software to hedge funds.

"There, they discovered that big Wall Street firms were paying next-to-nothing to trade stocks, while most Americans were charged commission for every single trade.

"So they decided to change that, and headed back to California to build a financial product that would enable everyone – not just the wealthy – access to financial markets," says their bio on Robinhood.

They based the name on Robin Hood, the legendary, and heroic English outlaw archer and swordsman, who stole from the rich and gave to the poor.

At the age of 28, Tenev was recognized in Forbes magazine’s 30 under 30 for finance and the Fortune 40 under 40 list.

Forbes writes that "since its launch, Robinhood's no commission trading model has revolutionized the brokerage industry".

However, Robinhood hit headlines in the wake of blocking retail investors from purchasing GameStop stock.

Robinhood on January 28, 2021, put limits on customers’ trading and even sold some shares without notice, after stocks for GameStop, AMC and other struggling companies shot up. 

GameStop's shares spiked more than 1,600 per cent in a month with the help of traders who posted tips on Reddit and targeted Wall Street hedge funds.

Hedge funds bet heavily that GameStop’s shares would drop, and some investors lost millions of dollars as a result. 

Tenev said on Sunday, January 31, that the trading app decided to place curbs on some transactions because the clearinghouse had asked for $3billion in collateral.

That same day, Elon Musk interviewed Tenev about the GameStop and Reddit trading turmoil.

He asked Tenev to "spill the beans”.

"What happened last week? Why can't people buy the GameStop shares? People demand an answer and want to know the details and the truth," Musk added.

Tenev replied that Robinhood had temporarily halted trading to meet regulatory capital requirements.

Robinhood then announced on Monday, February 1, that it had lined up $3.4billion to help meet its funding requirements.

Tenev is now expected to testify before a US House committee on February 18, 2021, Politico reported.

The website said lawmakers will probe the firm's role in the frantic trading of GameStop and other companies' stock.

Politico predicted the show-down before the House Financial Services Committee will "be a blockbuster".

Democratic Rep Maxine Waters, who chairs the committee, and other House Democrats have pledged to investigate whether Wall Street hedge funds had a hand in Robinhood’s decision to stop trading.

Tenev wrote in USA Today: "We built Robinhood to provide access to investing for all. And it certainly wasn’t because we were trying to help hedge funds."

Writing about Wall Street's dramatic week, he said: "In a matter of days, our clearinghouse-mandated deposit requirements related to stocks increased ten-fold.

"They are what led us to put temporary buying restrictions in place on a small number of securities that the clearinghouses had raised their deposit requirements on.

"It was not because we wanted to stop people from buying these or any stocks."

What is Vladimir Tenev's net worth?

According to Celebrity Net Worth, Vladimir Tenev's net worth stands at a whopping $1billion.

When did he launch Robinhood?

Robinhood is the US online broker that has emerged as a gateway for amateur traders challenging Wall Street hedge funds.

Vladimir Tenev and Baiju Bhatt founded Robinhood in 2013, with the company launching its app in 2014, to allow trading access to anyone with a phone.

Robinhood is based in Menlo Park, California.

Source: Read Full Article