Wall Street Journal reveals UAE Sheikh Tahnoon secretly purchased 49% of World Liberty Financial for $500M four days before Trump's inauguration. $187M went to Trump family.
WSJ: Trump Family Sold 49% of Crypto Firm to UAE for $500M
The Wall Street Journal published a bombshell investigation on Saturday, February 1st, revealing that United Arab Emirates national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan—nicknamed the "Spy Sheikh"—secretly purchased a 49% stake in the Trump family's cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial for $500 million through Aryam Investment, an Abu Dhabi entity he controls. The deal was signed by Eric Trump on January 16, 2025, just four days before Donald Trump's second inauguration as president.
According to documents reviewed by the Journal and corroborated by people familiar with the matter, the investment agreement called for $250 million to be paid upfront, with $187 million flowing directly to Trump family-controlled entities. An additional $31 million was allocated to entities linked to the family of Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer who co-founded World Liberty Financial alongside the Trumps and who now serves as US Special Envoy to the Middle East. Another $31 million went to entities tied to World Liberty's other co-founders, Zak Folkman and Chase Herro. The remaining $250 million was scheduled to be paid by July 15, 2025, though the Journal could not determine how those funds were distributed.
The deal made Aryam Investment the largest outside shareholder of World Liberty Financial, which at the time of the investment had no operational products and existed primarily as a DeFi concept with plans to launch a dollar-pegged stablecoin. Executives from Sheikh Tahnoon's AI company G42 helped manage Aryam Investment and took board seats at World Liberty as part of the arrangement, according to the Journal.
What transforms this from a straightforward investment into a potential corruption scandal is the sequence of events that followed. Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is not merely a wealthy investor—he is the brother of UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed, serves as the country's national security adviser, and manages the $1 trillion Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. He is also chairman of MGX and G42, UAE entities central to the country's ambitions to become a global leader in artificial intelligence.
For years, Sheikh Tahnoon had sought access to America's most advanced AI chips manufactured by Nvidia, which are essential for training large language models and building competitive AI infrastructure. The Biden administration repeatedly denied these requests, citing national security concerns that the technology could be diverted to China. US intelligence had flagged potential ties between G42 CEO Peng Xiao and Chinese companies involved in military-civil fusion programs and human rights abuses. In early 2024, Republican lawmakers including then-Rep. Mike Gallagher sent letters warning about G42's relationships with Microsoft, OpenAI, and Dell, asserting that the transfer of sensitive AI technology posed risks to US national security.
Two months after Trump's inauguration, in March 2025, Sheikh Tahnoon met with President Trump and Steve Witkoff at the White House to discuss a deal that would grant the UAE access to 500,000 advanced US AI chips per year to create one of the world's largest AI data center clusters. The framework agreement was finalized and publicly announced in May 2025, transforming the UAE into a major global competitor in AI development. Under the agreement, 100,000 of those chips—20% of the total—were allocated specifically to Sheikh Tahnoon's G42.
The Journal's investigation reveals that this chip access deal came months after the secret $500 million investment in World Liberty Financial but was never publicly disclosed in context. In March 2025, when Sheikh Tahnoon's investment vehicle MGX completed a separate $2 billion investment into crypto exchange Binance, the payment was settled using World Liberty's newly launched stablecoin USD1—further intertwining Tahnoon's business interests with the Trump family's crypto venture.
The revelations have sparked immediate political backlash. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, called the arrangement "corruption, plain and simple" and demanded congressional hearings. "Congress needs to grow a spine and put a stop to Trump's crypto corruption," Warren said in a statement Saturday evening. Former Representative Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) warned that if a future administration determines the payments constituted acts of corruption, individuals involved could be sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Act and have their US assets frozen.
The White House and World Liberty Financial issued denials. David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty, told the Journal that Trump and Witkoff had no involvement in the deal and haven't been involved in the company since taking office, and that Witkoff never played an operational role. White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said, "President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public. There are no conflicts of interest," adding that Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children.
Legal and public ethics experts cited by the Wall Street Journal disagreed sharply with those assurances. The timing of the investment—four days before inauguration—combined with the subsequent policy reversal granting UAE access to sensitive AI technology that the previous administration had explicitly blocked, raises serious questions about compliance with the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which prohibits federal officials from accepting payments or gifts from foreign governments without congressional consent.
This case represents something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming US president's business venture just days before that president assumes power, followed by policy decisions that directly benefit that foreign official's strategic interests. The Journal's reporting suggests the arrangement was deliberately kept secret—World Liberty disclosed in subsequent filings that the Trump family's stake had fallen sharply, but did not reveal the identity of the buyer or the geopolitical context.
The scandal adds to mounting concerns about Trump's crypto ventures creating conflicts of interest. In late 2025, Democratic Senators Warren and Jack Reed sent letters to the Justice Department and Treasury demanding investigations into alleged links between World Liberty's token sales and sanctioned foreign actors, citing claims that WLFI governance tokens were purchased by blockchain addresses tied to North Korea's Lazarus Group.
Whether this latest revelation prompts congressional action or legal consequences remains uncertain given Republican control of both chambers and the Justice Department. However, the optics are undeniably damaging: a foreign government paying hundreds of millions directly to the president's family in exchange for policy reversals that advance that government's strategic interests. Former government ethics officials described the arrangement as textbook pay-for-play corruption, regardless of the legal technicalities surrounding trusts and family management.
For the crypto industry, the scandal further tarnishes an already battered reputation and provides ammunition to critics who argue digital assets enable opacity, money laundering, and circumvention of traditional oversight mechanisms. World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin being used to settle a $2 billion Binance investment—with both transactions involving the same UAE royal who secretly owns 49% of the stablecoin issuer—illustrates how crypto infrastructure can facilitate complex, difficult-to-trace flows of capital between politically connected actors.
As Bitcoin crashes below $76,000 and crypto markets suffer $111 billion in market cap losses, the World Liberty scandal adds regulatory uncertainty and reputational damage to an industry already reeling from price declines, exchange hacks, and institutional capital flight.