Just four days before President Donald Trump took office in January 2025, two lieutenants to a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family signed a contract to funnel $500 million into a Trump family crypto company. The investment into World Liberty Financial was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of the president of the United Arab Emirates, the Wall Street Journal reported. A spokesperson for the Trump family crypto company confirmed to Fortune that the transaction had occurred.
In exchange for half a billion dollars, a company tied to the politician, who’s an Emirati national security advisor and sometimes referred to as the “spy sheikh,” received 49% in equity in World Liberty Financial. The company was founded in 2024 as a DeFi platform, or business that puts banking activities like lending and borrowing on the blockchain. It’s one of the Trump family’s main crypto businesses.
Meanwhile, the two sheikh lieutenants who signed onto the World Liberty deal also hold top positions at G42, a technology and venture capital firm backed by the Abu Dhabi royal family. When asked by Fortune in May whether G42 backed the Trump family crypto company, Eric Trump, son of the president and cofounder of World Liberty Financial, said: “I’m not going to get to who the investors are, but we’ve got some pretty meaningful investors.”
The investment comes amid scrutiny over a landmark AI deal that saw the U.S. agree to give access to advanced AI chips to the Abu Dhabi–based G42, which is also a significant investor in AI. Fiacc Larkin, a senior executive at G42, is an advisor to World Liberty Financial, according to his LinkedIn and first reported by the New York Times.
“Any claim that this deal had anything to do with the administration’s actions on chips is 100% false,” said a spokesperson for World Liberty Financial. “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.”
Anna Kelly, a spokesperson for the White House, said: “President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
A spokesperson for G42 did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Tokens, stablecoins, and DeFi
The deal follows broader worries over conflicts of interest concerning the president’s policies and his family’s crypto businesses, which continue to lean heavily on the commander-in-chief’s likeness and brand. He and the first lady have both promoted their own memecoins. Trump Media & Technology Group, which is behind the Trump-affiliated social media platform Truth Social, has also leaned into crypto. And Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr. have both backed a Bitcoin mining business called American Bitcoin.
But, among the Trump family’s sprawling crypto empire, World Liberty Financial stands out as the most ambitious and potentially lucrative.
In October 2024, the Trumps announced the launch of the business, which they called a DeFi platform. DeFi is shorthand for decentralized finance—a term those in the crypto industry use to refer to taking traditional banking activities like lending and borrowing and putting them on the blockchain.
When first launched, the company had no products—except for a cryptocurrency that it sold to investors for $550 million. In March, the company launched its own stablecoin, or cryptocurrency pegged to underlying assets like the U.S. dollar. The coin got an immediate bump in market capitalization after MGX, another venture firm tied to the Abu Dhabi royal family, invested $2 billion into the crypto exchange Binance with USD1, the stablecoin.
In January, the company finally released its own DeFi product, which lets users borrow and lend cryptocurrency using USD1.
