Vlad Tenev, co-founder and CEO of Robinhood, rings the opening bell at the Nasdaq on July 29, 2021.
Source: The Nasdaq
Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev says he doesn’t believe that the payment for order flow (PFOF) model of market-maker routing that the company incorporates in the U.S. is under threat.
Speaking with CNBC, Tenev defended the practice of PFOF, saying that it’s “inherently here to stay.” He was referring to PFOF as it exists in the United States, where the practice is legal and regulated.
PFOF is the practice of routing trades through market-makers like Citadel Securities in return for a slice of the profits. The phenomenon has helped trading firms like Robinhood drive commissions down to zero, making it cheaper generally for consumers to invest in stocks.
“If I’m a business that’s selling things, and I’m generating transaction revenue, the more you use it, the more money you get. Inherently, there’s a conflict there because I make more money by getting you to transact more,” Tenev told CNBC in an interview.
“I think it’s important not to take the baby out with the bathwater. What does that mean, you shouldn’t make revenue on a transaction-based business? That’s unreasonable. And I think the point has been politicised to some degree.”
PFOF is viewed as controversial because of the perceived conflict of interest it creates between the broker and clients.
Critics say that brokers have an incentive to direct order flow to market makers offering PFOF arrangements over the interests of their clients.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission had looked at banning PFOF in light of concerns surrounding the practice, but opted not to, while the European Union has imposed a blanket ban on PFOF.
PFOF accounts for a small chunk of Robinhood’s revenues today, Tenev said, while much of its income today comes from net interest income which is generated from cash in user balances.
“If you look at equities, PFOF in particular, it’s about 5%. of our revenue, so a much smaller component of the overall pie. And we’ve diversified the business quite a bit,” including other areas like securities lending, margin, and subscriptions.
Robinhood’s race to the bottom on commission fees has forced many major players in the wealth management world to slash their own fees to zero, in turn causing some companies to wind up or sell up to competitors.
“In the U.S., Robinhood came along and really changed the industry,” Tenev said. “The discount brokers that are charging commissions essentially ceased to exist.”
“They had to drop commissions to zero. A lot of them couldn’t survive that transition as standalone companies and ended up consolidating. And we’re still living through the the end result of that.”
Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk gestures behind protective glass during a rally for Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. president Donald Trump, at the site of the July assassination attempt against Trump, in Butler, Pennsylvania, U.S., October 5, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Tesla CEO Elon Musk, a meagdonor and adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is now seeking to influence Germany’s election, posting an endorsement on X of the country’s far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
In a post Thursday night, Musk wrote, “Only the AfD can save Germany.”
Musk, who has over 200 million listed followers on the site that he owns, made the comment while sharing a post from far-right influencer, Naomi Seibt, who claimed that Germany’s “presumptive next chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) is horrified by the idea that Germany should follow Elon Musk’s and Javier Milei’s example,” referring to the president of Argentina.
Seibt has a history of promoting white nationalist ideology, The Guardian previously reported, and has denied the validity of scientific consensus around climate change, namely that it’s driven by fossil fuel emissions.
In a post on X, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) called Musk an “out of touch billionaire running the incoming Trump Administration” who “enthusiastically supports the neo-Nazi party in Germany.”
“The AfD’s mission is to rehabilitate the image of the Nazi movement,” Murphy wrote. He added that one of the party’s leaders has a license plate that’s “an open tribute to Hitler,” and another “described Judaism as the ‘inner enemy’ in Germany.”
Musk and Tesla’s investor relations team didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Friday, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a center-left Social Democrat, dismissed Musk’s claim that only the far-right party can “save Germany.”
Under Scholz’s leadership, Germany‘s left-wing coalition collapsed in November, and AfD is currently polling in second place ahead of February elections. Throughout Germany, where the AfD has placed highly in state elections, the other parties have generally refused to form coalitions with it.
Far right parties have also gained ground in the Netherlands, Austria, Finland and elsewhere. Many cheered Trump’s election, which Musk helped finance through $277 million in contributions to the campaign and related Republican causes.
Tesla’s stock is up about 75% since Trump’s victory, surpassing its prior all-time high from 2021 last week.
AfD has reportedly criticized Tesla and its factory outside of Berlin. The party claimed many of Tesla’s thousands of workers there commute in from Poland or Berlin, limiting the economic benefits to the local community in Brandeburg.
The AfD generally views electric vehicles as part of an ideological climate movement, and not good for Germany’s auto industry.
Europe has been a tough market for Tesla this year. According to data from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association, sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric vehicles.
Elsewhere in Euopre, Musk endorsed right-wing Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and has voiced support for Nigel Farage in the U.K, a populist politician and head of Reform UK. In South America, Musk endorsed and has a friendship with Argentina’s President Milei, a self-described anarcho-capitalist.
Bitcoin dipped below the $93,000 mark earlier in the day before trading above that price in volatile trade.
By around 8:26 ET, bitcoin was trading at $93,809.39, according to Coin Metrics, down around 8% from 24 hours before when it was priced above $102,000.
The cryptocurrency hit an all-time high above $108,000 just this week, but has since sold off aggressively.
The Federal Reserve rattled markets in recent days, as it signaled fewer interest rate cuts next year. Equity markets took a hit, filtering through to crypto assets.
The price of bitcoin price has more than doubled this year, supported by a number of factors including the launch of spot exchange-traded funds and the U.S. presidential election of Donald Trump. He has pledged pro-crypto policies and his victory at the polls helped propel bitcoin to its latest record high.
With some markets on edge due to the Fed, some of the steam has come out of assets that have seen big gains this year.
Tesla, which has been another big beneficiary of Trump’s win, continued its post-election slide with shares falling on Friday in premarket trade. Other big names like Nvidia were also lower during the session.
Bitcoin’s fall also dragged down other cryptocurrencies. Ether was down around 12%, and XRP plunged 10% from 24 hours prior, at around 8:27 a.m. ET.
Tesla electric vehicles are parked in a parking lot at the Tesla Gigafactory Berlin-Brandenburg plant.
Patrick Pleul | Picture Alliance | Getty Images
Shares of Tesla continued to slide on Friday, in what appeared to be a case of investors taking profits from the electric car maker’s blistering post-U.S. election rally.
As of around 6:30 a.m. ET, the firm’s shares were down nearly 5% in U.S. premarket trading, extending losses from earlier in the week. On Wednesday, Tesla shares slumped 8% to post their worst day since before Donald Trump’s presidential election victory in November.
Trump’s win prompted a sharp rally in Tesla shares, as investors increased their bets that the electric vehicle firm would benefit thanks to its CEO Elon Musk’s close ties to the president-elect. The stock is still up around 65% since Nov. 5’s market close — the night of the U.S. presidential vote.
Musk was appointed by Trump to co-lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, also referred to as “DOGE.” The proposed presidential advisory commission’s acronym shares the same name as the internet meme that inspired so-called “memecoin” cryptocurrency, dogecoin.
Musk was a major backer of Trump during the Republican’s election run, pouring in $277 million primarily into his campaign effort, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Musk is the world’s richest person, with a net worth of $439.4 billion, according to Forbes data.
Last month, Bloomberg News reported Trump’s transition team was planning to pursue a federal framework for regulating self-driving vehicles.
Tesla and Trump’s transition team did not immediately respond to a CNBC request for comment on the report.
If true, the move would offer a major boost to Musk’s EV firm. Tesla is staking its future on the idea of rolling out mass fleets of autonomous vehicles, known as “robotaxi” services. At the firm’s “We Robot” event in October, Musk unveiled the firm’s Cybercab self-driving concept car.
In other Tesla-related news, data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association on Thursday showed sales of Tesla cars declined 40.9% in November, exceeding the overall 9.5% dip in sales of battery electric cars (BEVs) in the bloc.
Separately, Tesla also on Friday said it was recalling nearly 700,000 vehicles in the U.S. due to an issue with its tire pressure monitoring system. Software-related recalls aren’t typically a huge issue for Tesla, however, as it can issue “over-the-air” updates to fix these issues.