Lawmakers grill CEOs in GameStop saga

WASHINGTON—Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev admitted he should not have restricted the selling of certain stocks last month as online investors clamored to buy shares of GameStop. Prior to the cutoff, the video game retailer’s shares rose 1,600 percent in value. The move fueled accusations from users of the Robinhood app and lawmakers of improper market intervention.

“I apologize, and I’m not going to say that Robinhood did everything perfectly,” Tenev said in a marathon House Financial Services Committee hearing on Thursday. “Robinhood as an organization will learn from this, and improve, to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

What else happened during the hearing? Lawmakers also heard from Reddit CEO Steve Huffman, Citadel investment firm owner Ken Griffin, and formerly anonymous trader Keith Gill. Gill led a coalition of amateur investors against hedge fund executives in a fight to bolster GameStop’s worth. Lawmakers grilled Tenev and others on their failure to protect investors from losses but were divided about where ultimate fault lay and what changes, if any, they should make to stock market regulations. One noteworthy side effect: GameStop’s stock price increased by more than 6 percent as Gill began testifying.

Dig deeper: Read Megan Basham’s report on how the GameStop drama unfolded.