The facts
A federal class-action complaint filed in the Middle District of Florida accuses Webull Corporation, founder and CEO Anquan Wang, and CFO H.C. Wang of misleading investors about just how Chinese the company really is. The suit, brought by investor Jolene Ward on behalf of everyone who bought Webull securities between April 26, 2025 and October 6, 2026, alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act.
The complaint zeroes in on Webull's April 2025 annual report filed with the SEC, in which the company insisted it did not fall within the scope of laws "targeting companies with connections to China." Its evidence: five of the six members of its board and senior management were U.S. citizens based in the U.S., its auditor KPMG was based in the U.S., customer data "cannot be transmitted outside of the United States", and its mainland China operations were "limited to research and development and technical support functions."
The same filing disclosed that the attorneys general of 14 states had written to raise concerns about Webull's handling of sensitive personal and financial data, and that on December 5, 2024, the House Select Committee on competition with the Chinese Communist Party sent a letter to the CEO of Webull Financial asking about its China operations and the security of customer data. Webull's answer, in the filing: the claims were "largely based on outdated and inaccurate information", and it was cooperating.
Then came October 7. According to the complaint, CNBC reported before the markets opened that the Select Committee had found a "profound gap" between Webull's presentation of itself as an American company and its actual control and operations. The Committee reportedly found that Webull had initially told it that it had no offices or employees in China, while Webull's mainland China subsidiary, Hunan Weibu Information Technology Co., Ltd., in fact employed approximately 863 employees, or 62% of Webull's global workforce. On the news, Webull's shares fell $1.39 per share, or approximately 19%, to close at $5.89 per share on October 7, 2026, on unusually heavy trading volume.
The complaint also lays out the ownership math: Webull is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, and founder Anquan Wang, a citizen of the People's Republic of China, beneficially owned 16.4% of Webull's outstanding ordinary shares, representing 79.2% of Webull's total voting power, as of March 31, 2026. All of it, the suit alleges, added up to a company presenting itself as American while its core platform, software development, data pipelines, and core engineering depended on personnel and infrastructure in China.
Our take
Webull told the House Select Committee it had zero employees in China while its Hunan subsidiary actually employed 863 people who made up 62 percent of the entire global workforce. That is not a paperwork error. That is straight-up lying to Congress about where the company actually lives and works.
The April 2025 SEC filing doubled down on the same crap. Five of six board members were US citizens, KPMG was American, and customer data supposedly could not leave the United States. The filing also claimed mainland operations were limited to research and development plus tech support. Sixty-two percent of the staff doing nothing but limited support would be the most bloated, expensive help desk on the planet.
Founder Anquan Wang, a PRC citizen, controlled 79.2 percent of the voting power through his 16.4 percent share ownership while the company hid behind a Cayman Islands incorporation. The same filing mentioned 14 state attorneys general already sniffing around data handling and a December 2024 letter from the committee itself. Webull brushed it off as outdated information and said it was cooperating. Then the committee found the profound gap between the American facade and the actual control structure.
CNBC broke the story on October 7 and the stock dropped 1.39 dollars, or 19 percent, to 5.89 on heavy volume. Investors suddenly realized the supposedly US-based trading platform depended on Chinese personnel and infrastructure for the core engineering and data pipelines.
Webull's checklist of American-ness reads like a dickhead trying to smuggle a suitcase through customs while his name is monogrammed on the side. The market did not buy the story for a single trading session. Zero employees in China. Eight hundred sixty-three. That is the kind of arithmetic that only works when you are counting on everyone else being fucking stupid.
