Robinhood CEO: limited buying of GameStop to 'protect' people, company

Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev is probably one of the most talked about people in the world right now, with the Robinhood CEO talking with CNBC on Thursday night about all-things Robinhood.

The company restricted trading of stocks like GameStop and AMC Entertainment, with Robinhood only allowing sell positions and not letting people open new ones. Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev explained to CNBC: "In order to protect the firm and protect our customers we had to limit buying in these stocks".

Tenev added: "Robinhood is a brokerage firm, we have lots of financial requirements. We have SEC net capital requirements and clearing house deposits. So that's money that we have to deposit at various clearing houses. Some of these requirements fluctuate quite a bit based on volatility in the market and they can be substantial in the current environment where there's a lot of volatility and a lot of concentrated activity in these names that have been going viral on social media".

Judging by how pissed off people are, I don't think this is the type of response they were looking for.

I think this tweet from Daniel Schwartzkopff, Founder @ Invictus Capital who said: "How is shutting down one side of an orderbook not market manipulation?"

And actually, the reply to Schwartzkopff's tweet was from Lindsey Yeauger who added "That interview was so painful. So many questions went unanswered. 1. Why are we just now hearing from him? 2. Since there was a clear liquidity issue, why not say, "For the near future these few stocks will have fees."? 3. When is the board replacing him?"