Murray NEB.-The chief executive of Robinhood, Vlad Tenev, was greeted with extreme hatred and agony in his hearing with congress. Tenev began the meeting by introducing himself but was quickly told to get to the point by representative Maxine Waters. Tenev was extremely apologetic and insisted he didn’t want to stop the trading of GME and other meme stocks. Tenev then added, “We don’t answer to hedge funds, we serve the millions of small investors who use our platform every day to invest.” Vlad Tenev explained how they were forced to shut down trading due to their business partners. People are speculating that he is referring to Citadel. Many reddit users have been accusing Citadel’s founder, Ken Griffin, of pressuring Robinhood to limit trades.

However during the hearing Mr. Griffin had opposed that idea and stated, “We had no role in Robinhood’s decision to limit trading in GameStop or any of the other meme stocks. I first learned about Robinhood’s trading restrictions only after they were publicly announced.”

During the hearing Representative Casten dialed the robinhood help line. Everyone in the hearing was able to listen and hear what an investor would hear. The help line went straight to a voice recording. The recording said “Thanks for calling Robinhood. Please visit us at Robinhood.com or on our app for support. If you have an urgent trading need, please make sure to include details of it when reaching out. Thanks and have a great day.”

Casten wanted to point out what a frantic investor would hear. Mr Casten was also referring to Alex Kearns. Alex Kearns was a college student who killed himself regarding an issue in Robinhood. Alex Kearns thought he owed Robinhood over $700,000. The call led to sharp and aggressive questioning of Tenev. “The history of financial regulation is to protect people like Alex Kearns from the system,” Representative Casten said.

Over the course of the entire hearing, Tenev faced over 120 questions. Robinhood will be under the spotlight and closely monitored for the next few weeks. Many people believe Robinhood won’t suffer any consequences, but other speculators say otherwise.