President Donald Trump was attending a private dinner on Thursday night with the top investors in his meme coin in a move that Democrats and ethics experts have blasted as blatant corruption.
More than 200 global investors are expected to participate in the event at his golf club billed as the “most exclusive invitation in the world.”
The average spent by guests to attend was just over $1.7 million a seat, according to a report.
The dinner, critics warn, will give top crypto investors unprecedented direct access to the president as they look to influence policy while Trump benefits financially from those buying up his digit asset launched just days before the president took office.
Senator Elizabeth Warren branded the event an “orgy of corruption.”
Trump has promoted the event on Truth Social on numerous occasions since the dinner was announced on April 23, boosting the $TRUMP token’s value.
Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty Images
The 220 winners of the contest to attend were expected to spend $394 million in total on the president’s official cryptocurrency, according to analysis by blockchain analytics company Nansen NBC News reported. The total cost to attend ranged from $55,000 to $37.7 million.
The analysis found that the top seven winners each spent more than $10 million while the bottom 24 spent less than $100,000.
Details about who will attend have been largely shrouded in mystery, but some of the top $TRUMP coin holders have revealed themselves.
Chinese-born crypto billionaire Justin Sun wrote in a post on X on Tuesday that he was among the buyers who had secured an invitation to attend.
Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry. 🇺🇸 https://t.co/FYb39LTwDz
— H.E. Justin Sun 🍌 (@justinsuntron) May 20, 2025
“Honored to support @POTUS and grateful for the invitation from @GetTrumpMemes to attend President Trump’s Gala Dinner as his TOP fan!” he wrote. “As the top holder of $TRUMP, I’m excited to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry.”
A Singapore-based startup MemeCore will also be in attendance. Its X account wrote that as a “top 2 holder of $TRUMP, I’m looking forward to connecting with you all, discussing crypto, and sharing diverse insights for the future of this industry” in a post on Thursday.
The White House has not shared whether it would make a full list of attendees for the cryptocurrencies event public despite requests.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt defended the president’s participation in the event on Thursday. She said he was attending in his personal capacity and argued it was not a White House dinner.
“The president is abiding by all conflict of interest laws that are applicable to the president,” Leavitt insisted from the White House podium.
According to the invitation, the top 25 holders of the $TRUMP token will also get to attend a private reception with the president before the dinner and participate in a White House tour on Friday.
Democrats and ethics experts on Thursday called for the White House to release the list of attendees and warned that foreigners could be paying for access to Trump to influence U.S. national security.
“It would be bad enough if you could pay as an American citizen to get secret access to the president, but from what we understand, most of the attendees tonight will be foreigners,” said Senator Chris Murphy. “These could be individuals with ties to terrorist groups. These could be representatives of Vladimir Putin. These could be sanctioned individuals.”
Murphy said the dinner on Thursday may be the “most corrupt of all of the corruption.”
Democrats said the dinner should not be happening at all, but argued at the very least the administration should have no problem releasing the names of individuals set to attend to the American public to prove they’re above board.
“They were able to pay their way in to an audience with the president of the United States to ask for favorable national security concessions,” Murphy said.
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