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A crypto firm linked to Donald Trump agreed to a half-billion-dollar investment backed by an Abu Dhabi royal days before the US president’s inauguration.
The Trump family’s World Liberty Financial (WLF) signed a deal in January with a group of investors backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser who also oversees a sprawling business empire. The deal was worth $500 million for about a 49 percent stake in the company, according to the Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the deal.
WLF spokesman David Wachsman said the company agreed to the investment “because we strongly believe it is best for our business as we continue to grow.”
He denied the investment had anything to do with a deal to grant the UAE access to US artificial intelligence chips struck later in the year, but declined to give details of the deal.
“Any claim that this deal has anything to do with the administration’s actions on chips is 100 percent false. The left-wing media is dishonestly spreading baseless insinuations in an effort to deceive the public and defame our company,” Wachsman said.
During a trip to the Gulf last May, Trump and his UAE counterpart, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, revealed plans to build the largest cluster of artificial intelligence data centers outside the United States.
A planned 10-square-mile UAE-US AI campus in Abu Dhabi is expected to have 5GW of data center power, the equivalent of more than 2 million latest-generation GB200 chips from AI chipmaker Nvidia.
The investment raises more questions about the merging of politics and business during Trump’s second term.
WLF was created in late 2024 by Trump’s three sons and Steve Witkoff’s sons, Zach and Alex. Donald Trump is described on WLF’s website as the company’s co-founder emeritus, as is Steve Witkoff, the president’s envoy to the Middle East.
The WLF statement said that neither President Trump nor Steve Witkoff “were involved in any way in this transaction and have had no involvement with World Liberty Financial since taking office.”
The White House said the president “acts only in the best interests of the American public,” adding that his assets were in a trust managed by his children.
“The president is not involved in trade deals that could implicate his constitutional responsibilities,” said David Warrington, White House counsel.
A person close to Steve Witkoff said his children ran WLF and he had “nothing to do with it.”
“Steve was not involved in the negotiations related to [Emirati AI company] G42. He was only informed of these discussions, which is entirely appropriate,” the person said.
Sheikh Tahnoon has spearheaded Abu Dhabi’s push into AI and was an integral part of its discussions with the United States to secure Nvidia chips. He chairs G42 and MGX, a state-backed fund focused on AI.
Like other oil-rich Gulf states, the United Arab Emirates, traditional allies of the United States, have actively courted Trump since his return to the White House, promising hundreds of billions of dollars in investment in the United States.
During Trump’s visit to the Gulf last year, the United States and the United Arab Emirates announced plans to build a sprawling data center campus in Abu Dhabi, boosting their ambitions to become a global AI hub as they sought to secure access to Nvidia’s chips.
Investment funds in Abu Dhabi, the wealthy capital of the United Arab Emirates, have also struck deals with Trump’s family network.
Before Trump won re-election last year, his son-in-law Jared Kushner’s private equity fund, Affinity Partners, raised $1.5 billion from Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund and an Abu Dhabi fund linked to Sheikh Tahnoon.
In another business relationship between Trump’s network and the UAE, Zach Witkoff announced last year that Abu Dhabi investment vehicle MGX had decided to use WLF’s $1 stablecoin to close its $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance.
