In autumn 2024, when it had become clear that he'd likely win back the White House in about six weeks, Donald Trump and his friend Steve Witkoff founded a crypto business called World Liberty Financial (WLF), McCarthy wrote. WLF was (and remains) an ideal vehicle for leveraging political power in search of financial gain. He added, a crypto business whether in tokens, currency, or other iterations is an ideal way to disguise political payoffs as financial transactions.
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.
I love it when these papers talk about something unprecedented' or never happening before' as if the Biden family and the Biden administration didn't do exactly the same thing, and they were just in office, Blanche said.
Zhao had asked Trump for a pardon previously. He has deep ties to World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture that the Republican president and his sons Eric and Donald Jr. launched in September. Trump's most recent financial disclosure report reveals he made more than $57 million last year from World Liberty Financial, which has launched USD1, a stablecoin pegged at a 1-to-1 ratio to the U.S. dollar.
During a two-hour livestream on X Spaces, Trump, his sons, and their business partner Chase Herro, who once described himself as the "dirtbag of the internet," debuted a new crypto endeavor called World Liberty Financial. Trump's appearance was largely promotional. In his opening remarks, Trump did not speak directly about World Liberty Financial,instead touching on Sunday's thwarted assassination attempt, giving a condensed version of his campaign stump speech, and outlining his hopes for the future of cryptocurrency in the U.S.
The Trump family's crypto operation has blacklisted one of its biggest supporters. On Friday, billionaire Justin Sun-who until recently had been tight with the Trumps-posted on X that Trump-backed World Liberty Financial had frozen more than $100 million in cryptocurrency he had purchased from the project. "As one of the early investors, I joined together with everyone-we bought in the same way, and we all deserve the same rights," he said.
