The $16b Aussie tech firm in a slanging match over its China links

Jack Zhang, the co-founder and chief executive of Australian-born payments company Airwallex, once claimed to have worked 100 hours a week for the past 20 years. These days, some of that time appears to be dedicated to playing keyboard warrior, with Zhang embroiled in increasingly intemperate online sparring over the company’s links to China.

The source of Zhang’s online animus is Keith Rabois, the Trump-aligned Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has repeatedly accused Airwallex of being vulnerable to legal obligations to assist with Chinese Communist Party espionage upon request, on the basis that it could be compelled to hand American users’ data to Beijing.

This week, Zhang accused Rabois (who is on the board of rival payments start-up Ramp) of “unhinged conspiratorial rants” on X. Rabois rather ominously warned that Zhang would be “pleading the fifth soon”, in a reference to the constitutional provision that protects people from self-incrimination. The Airwallex boss then responded with a Mad Men meme.

So far, so silly. But Rabois’ claims clearly continue to get under Airwallex’s skin.

Airwallex, which was founded 11 years ago in a Melbourne cafe, but is now domiciled in the Cayman Islands, has been a runaway Australian fintech success story, most recently soaring to a $16 billion valuation and becoming the country’s second-most valuable start-up after Canva. But it has never quite been able to run away from a series of damaging headlines.

Local outlets, including this masthead, have reported on a relentless, aggressive workplace culture at the company. Airwallex has attempted to shrug this off as the teething problems associated with a high-growth start-up, and the disconnect between its founders, a bunch of ambitious type A strivers like Zhang (who insists that burnout is not in his vocabulary), and less motivated staff.

But the past 12 months have brought more serious allegations.

In January, weeks after Rabois made his claims about Chinese espionage, the financial crimes regulator AUSTRAC ordered an external audit of Airwallex’s anti-money-laundering and counter-terrorism-financing program, at the company’s expense, putting plans for a 2026 NASDAQ listing on ice. The probe is ongoing, and there has been no mention of China by AUSTRAC.

In the US, Rabois’ concerns about China have also made it all the way to Capitol Hill, where a Republican-controlled congressional committee warned Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the company’s links to China could compromise sensitive American data. In June, Republican senator Tom Cotton said that while Airwallex “markets itself as an Australian company, its ties to communist China run deep”.

Zhang responded by framing these criticisms as blinded by bias against his own country of origin.

“I was born in China. I cannot change that fact, nor would I seek to,” he wrote in a recent letter to the congressional committee. “I am a proud Australian citizen. I arrived in Melbourne as an immigrant at 15 with little English and no safety net, and Australia gave me the education, the opportunity and the freedom to build something.”

Through all this, however, the company has at times come across as impossibly thin-skinned. In January this year, it threatened litigation against media outlets including this masthead if they refused to remove critical articles about the company that quoted leaked internal documents, including some concerning its work culture. This masthead also revealed that it was seeking to hire influencers to praise Zhang’s “thought leadership”.

Since then, Airwallex has embarked on a less clunky image-laundering blitz. Former federal treasurer Josh Frydenberg was drafted onto its newly formed economic advisory council along with ex-US senator Roy Blunt in May. Last year, the company forged a partnership with English Premier League football champions Arsenal, and in July, revealed an advertisement directed by Spike Lee and featuring club legend Thierry Henry.

Airwallex is plotting a major expansion into the United States and has beefed up its lobbying muscle there. Rachael Horwitz, a Silicon Valley veteran, with senior positions and Google, Meta and Andreessen Horowitz, was drafted in as senior vice president global communications and corporate affairs. Samantha Vinograd, a former Biden administration counter-terrorism advisor and national security pundit on CBS, has started running corporate affairs. Former Bloomberg and Politico White House reporter Jennifer Epstein is head of editorial and economic impact communications.

Meanwhile, according to the Financial Times, it has been moving staff who do not work in China-facing roles out of that country in response to those security concerns. While these fears might have delayed a planned IPO until next year, they have not stopped the company from continuing to secure more funding from investors who believe in its product, sending its valuation ever higher.

Despite that valuation, and all its on-paper success, Airwallex remains acutely sensitive to criticism of its operations in China. Jack Zhang is no Don Draper, and he clearly thinks about Keith Rabois quite a bit.

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