An investment firm tied to the United Arab Emirates purchased nearly half of the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company last year, making the family business partners with the UAE even as U.S. President Donald Trump negotiated foreign policy matters with the Middle Eastern nation.
The investment, reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal, was confirmed Sunday by a spokesperson for the Trumps’ crypto company, World Liberty Financial.
Days before his father’s inauguration in January 2025, Eric Trump, the president’s middle son, signed the agreement with the investment firm for a $500 million investment in World Liberty, the Journal reported. David Wachsman, a World Liberty spokesperson, confirmed the transaction in a statement to The New York Times.
That agreement gave the Emirati-backed firm a 49% stake in World Liberty. Two top lieutenants to the UAE’s national security adviser, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, joined the board of World Liberty.
Asked about the terms of the deal, including the board seats, the timing and the size of the investment, Wachsman said, “We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow.”
Representatives for Sheikh Tahnoon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Trump family’s business dealings with the UAE have blurred the line between government and private enterprise, alarming ethics experts and congressional Democrats.
Sheikh Tahnoon, a member of the Emirati royal family, has been a major foreign policy intermediary with the United States for more than a decade on matters varying from combating terrorism to sharing advanced computer technology. He runs a sprawling investment empire that includes G42, a technology firm that has become a powerhouse in the booming world of artificial intelligence.
The investment in World Liberty was one of two large transactions last year involving the Trumps’ crypto firm and the Emirati government. At a conference in Dubai in May, World Liberty executives disclosed that MGX, another company run by Sheikh Tahnoon, was using $2 billion worth of a digital currency issued by World Liberty, known as a stablecoin, to make a large investment.
That maneuver alone turned World Liberty into one of the world’s largest issuers of stablecoins — a type of cryptocurrency that maintains a price of $1. The deal was poised to generate tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue for World Liberty.
Donald Trump, through an entity called DT Marks DEFI, effectively controls a large stake in World Liberty, which generated $57 million for him just as the company was starting up, according to his financial disclosure report last year. Revenues from the company are also shared with Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, who is Trump’s Middle East envoy, among other partners.
Overall, the Trump family’s crypto investments in the past year have increased the family’s net worth by more than $1 billion, at least on paper.
At the same time that the crypto deal came together, the Emirati government secured an agreement with the Trump administration for the export of hundreds of thousands of advanced chips to power AI technology.
The White House agreed to the deal despite concerns from some national security officials in the Trump administration that the UAE might share the chips with China, which could potentially use them to advance its military weapons systems.
In an investigation last year, the Times reported that the chip negotiations intersected in critical ways with World Liberty’s business dealings, involving many of the same people and unfolding simultaneously. A G42 employee held a job at World Liberty at the same time that he worked for the Emiratis, the Times reported last year.
The Times did not find evidence that the chip exports were explicitly offered in return for the crypto investment, or vice versa. But the findings prompted outrage from Democrats in Congress, who called for investigations by the inspectors general at the Commerce and State departments.
The State Department’s inspector general said in December that it was conducting a review of the matter, a standard step before any kind of formal investigation might be opened. The Commerce Department did not respond Sunday when asked about the status of the review.
In his statement, Wachsman said that “any claim that this deal had anything to do with the administration’s actions on chips is 100% false.”
“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,” he said.
The White House has also denied any connection between World Liberty and the chips exports and disputed any suggestion that Trump had a conflict of interest.
“The president has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” David Warrington, the White House counsel, said in a statement to the Times on Sunday. “President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner, and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”
Warrington added that Witkoff, in his work as Middle East envoy, “has not and does not participate in any official matters that could impact his financial interests.” The White House confirmed last year to the Times that Witkoff had been “briefed on all major policy decisions in the region” but disputed assertions by other Trump officials that he participated in meetings where the UAE chip deal was discussed.
Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren called the new revelations evidence that the Trump family, Witkoff and their other business partners had “sold out American national security in order to benefit the president’s crypto company.”
On Sunday, she said that the agreement to sell chips to the UAE should be terminated and White House officials should be called to testify on the matter.
“This is corruption, plain and simple,” Warren said in a statement. “Congress needs to grow a spine and put a stop to Trump’s crypto corruption.”
Originally written by: David Yaff-Bellany and Eric Lipton
Source: The Japan Times
Published on: 2 February 2026
Link to original article: UAE firm quietly took stake in the Trump family’s crypto company
