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Page 99 of 496
No. 176
Filed MAY 1, 2025
Self-Dealing & Corruption
Second Term

Trump-Family Crypto Venture Announces UAE Sovereign Fund Will Settle $2 Billion Investment Through Its Personal Stablecoin, Resolving Long-Standing Concern Foreign Governments Lacked Designated Trump-Family Payment Rail

The Filing

DUBAI. The Abu Dhabi-based investment firm MGX, an entity owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates, announced Thursday at the Token2049 cryptocurrency conference here that it would settle a $2 billion investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance using USD1, the stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial, a digital assets venture majority-owned by President Donald J. Trump and his sons, resolving a long-standing concern within the administration that the global stablecoin market did not yet contain a Trump-family product through which foreign sovereign wealth funds were obliged to route major transactions to other foreign companies.

The arrangement was announced by Eric Trump and World Liberty Financial co-founder Zach Witkoff during a public panel, alongside Witkoff's father, who serves as the President's personal Middle East envoy with active diplomatic portfolio over the very governments now routing capital through his son's company. Industry observers, asked whether the overlapping arrangement raised any concerns, said it raised several, and asked not to be quoted by name.

MGX, whose chairman is Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and brother of the country's president, is presently in active negotiations with the Trump administration over advanced artificial intelligence chip exports, civilian nuclear cooperation, and the sale of next-generation American military equipment, each of which requires presidential approval and each of which carries an estimated dollar value substantially exceeding the $2 billion investment now flowing through the President's family stablecoin. A senior administration official, asked whether any institutional wall separated the President's official decisions on these matters from his family's receipt of UAE capital, indicated that the President remained "very focused" on the matters and declined to elaborate.

World Liberty Financial, whose USD1 stablecoin did not exist at the time of the President's inauguration, did not exist at the time of his election, and did not exist as a publicly discussed concept in any financial filing predating his presidential campaign, will generate fees and interest income on $2 billion of UAE sovereign capital for the duration the funds remain in USD1, with the Trump family entitled to a majority of net revenue under the company's publicly disclosed structure. The President has not divested from the venture, having declined to place his business interests in a blind trust as predecessors had done, citing personal opposition to blindness, trusts, and predecessors.

Asked whether routing $2 billion of UAE sovereign capital through the sitting President's family business during a period in which the President is conducting active foreign policy with the UAE raised any concerns, a White House spokesperson redirected the question to the Trump Organization. A Trump Organization spokesperson redirected the question to World Liberty Financial. World Liberty Financial directed the question to a press release. The press release described the deal as "a great deal."

At press time, MGX representatives confirmed that the next $2 billion in UAE sovereign investments would also route through the Trump-family stablecoin, an arrangement they described as efficient.

Sourced to the public record · presented without editorial embellishment
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