An investment firm where Donald Trump’s son is a partner pitched for companies to sponsor an apparently official Treasury event, The Wall Street Journal reports.
The company, 1789 Capital, sent the offer to a number of tech outfits, billing the Oct. 21 conference as the “Inaugural U.S. Treasury AI Summit” at which Secretary Scott Bessent would be announcing the department’s strategy on artificial intelligence, The WSJ said.
The pitch apparently included several different perks, including access to a VIP dinner and cocktail party, for companies.
A spokesperson for the Treasury Department has told the newspaper the materials had not been approved ahead of time. Bessent had planned on attending, but may withdraw his appearance if a resolution is not reached on the government shutdown ahead of time.
In exchanges with The WSJ, organizers of the conference reportedly later referred to the event as an “AI Summit on American Prosperity,” omitting any mention of the Treasury. People with knowledge of the plans told the newspaper the conference had been pitched “differently in different venues.”
Don Trump Jr. is not involved in the event, the WSJ said.
Legal experts expressed concern at what appeared to have been a private conference being marketed as a government event featuring key policy announcements. “You have the official imprimatur of the U.S. Treasury being used or an event that appears to result in the personal gain of outside actors,” as Norm Eisen, an ethics lawyer with the Democracy Defenders Fund, put it to The Journal.
It’s hardly the first time businesses tied to the Trump family have sparked concerns over potential conflicts of interest, not least given the MAGA administration’s ongoing rollback of tech regulations against the backdrop of the Trump Organization’s sizable and growing interests in the sector.
Only last week, it emerged that BlinkRx, a company specializing in the online order and delivery of prescription drugs that appointed Donald Trump Jr. to its board earlier in February, stands to net handsome profits from a White House push to radically overhaul the way consumers purchase pharmaceuticals.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Trump Jr.’s representatives for comment on this story.
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