Justin Sun, the CEO of BitTorrent, won a bid to have lunch with the Wizard of Omaha, Warren Buffet. The bid price? $4.6 million! As Leaprate reported, Warren Buffett is known for holding auctions for various charitable causes. The billionaire investor has also commented several times that he does not believe in the merits of cryptocurrencies, but that he is interested in technology of blockchain.
However, as exciting as the meeting was, Justin Sun cancelled it citing “health problems” as the primary reason to postpone the lunch with Buffett. However, Sun probably did not expect what followed after he postponed the meeting: press and investors started talking about the potential problems that BitTorrent is facing and that the cancellation of the lunch had nothing to do with Sun’s problems.
The real reason as to why the lunch was postponed, according to press, is that the Chinese administration got involved on the “case” and put extreme pressure on certain employees of TRON, threatening to detain them in order for the CEO to cancel the lunch with Buffett. There is no confirmation that this is truly the case, but rumours that the Chinese government had something to do with the postponed lunch have emerged since day one after the TRON Foundation announced Sun will not be attending the lunch.
The Chinese administration have have acted out amidst the trade war with the US, which peaked during the summer months of 2019. In 2017, the US exported goods to China for around $130 billion, while the imports from the country were roughly $500 billion. The trade deficit amounted to $370 billion and China was heavily accused that it influenced the import/export market by manipulating the prices for certain goods.
There is no confirmation that it was China that influenced Sun’s decision to postpone the much awaited lunch with the legendary investor.