A crypto company run by President Donald Trump’s family members sold a large stake to investors tied to the United Arab Emirates just days before Trump’s inauguration, linking a Trump family business to a prominent member of the UAE’s governing elite.
The investment, worth a reported $500 million, gave Emirati-backed investors a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto company that counts all three of Trump’s sons as co-founders and is also closely tied with Steve Witkoff, a longtime Trump ally who is among his most prominent advisers.
Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and a member of the royal family, was involved in the purchase, according to an arrangement first reported by the Wall Street Journal.
David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty Financial, defended the parameters of the agreement.
“We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow,” he said. “The idea that, when raising capital, a privately held American company should be held to some unique standard that no other similar company would be held is both ridiculous and un-American.”
Wachsman said Trump and Witkoff had no role in the deal and also have not been involved in the company since taking office. White House officials stressed that he turned his businesses over to his children.
“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly reelected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said in a statement. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
Sheikh Tahnoon, a senior member of the Emirati royal family, oversees a powerful investment empire and chairs both the country’s sovereign wealth fund and G42, the UAE’s artificial intelligence powerhouse. A brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates, he serves as the government’s national security adviser and is known as the “spy sheikh.”
For years, Sheikh Tahnoon has served as a key foreign policy intermediary with the United States. When the UAE announced $1.4 trillion in investment in the United States, it was Sheikh Tahnoon who met with Trump at the White House last year to deliver the news.
Several months after the investment in World Liberty Financial, the UAE was granted access to advanced chips made in the United States that can help power artificial intelligence. The Trump administration scrapped rules imposed under President Joe Biden, paving the way for G42 to purchase advanced American-made chips.
Critics have long raised questions about potential conflicts stemming from Trump’s extensive financial interests, including whether he could benefit as a private citizen from decisions made while in public office.
A person close to Witkoff, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said he was not involved in G42 negotiations but was briefed on them in his role as special envoy to the Middle East.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Massachusetts), the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called on several top Trump administration officials, including Witkoff, to testify before Congress about whether they have profited from the deal.
“This is corruption, plain and simple,” she said, pointing to the administration’s decision to approve sales of sensitive AI chips to the UAE.
“Congress needs to grow a spine and put a stop to Trump’s crypto corruption,” she added.
The White House on Sunday denied any connection between the UAE investment in the company Trump’s family helps run and the administration’s decision to approve sales of advanced chips.
“The President has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” David Warrington, the White House counsel, said in a statement. “President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”
Warrington said Witkoff complies with government ethics rules and does not participate in any official matters that could affect his financial interests. The person close to Witkoff said that his children run World Liberty Financial and that he “has nothing to do with it.”
World Liberty Financial was launched in 2024, with Trump explaining that he had come to support cryptocurrency after conversations with his sons. “Barron knows so much about this,” he said of his youngest son. The company listsTrump’s three sons among the co-founders, as well as two of Witkoff’s sons. Trump and Witkoff are each listed as “co-founder emeritus,” a designation reflecting that they stepped away after Trump returned to the White House.
The business has become one of the most lucrative parts of the president’s portfolio. The financial disclosure forms he filed last year list an income of $57.3 million off token sales, among his largest single sources of revenue.
Wachsman, the spokesman for World Liberty Financial, said, “Any claim that this deal had anything to do with the Administration’s actions on chips is 100% false.
“As a private business, we operate by the same rules and regulations as any other company in our space, do not want or receive any special treatment, and reject the fact-free suggestions to the contrary,” he said.
Susannah George contributed to this report.
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