U.S. President Donald Trump has built a business empire spanning real estate, casinos and entertainment. His family’s growing crypto dealings are now facing mounting criticism over conflicts of interest and foreign influence.
A top United Arab Emirates official holds a stake in the family’s latest venture: a planned crypto bank now drawing scrutiny over foreign ties to a sitting President. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser, and his co-investors own a major stake in the company behind that bank.
Earlier this month, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency gave conditional approval to World Liberty Financial, backed by Mr. Trump’s family and close allies, to set up a federally chartered U.S. trust bank to issue, redeem and safeguard a dollar-backed stablecoin, USD1.
Mr. Tahnoon and his co-investors own a 49% stake in the bank’s holding company, the Journal reported. “The shareholder structure of the bank’s holding company, called WLTC Holdings, is the same as World Liberty’s, though Tahnoon and his co-investors used a different entity — called StringZ Holding RSC — for the stake in WLTC. An entity affiliated with the Trump family holds a 38% stake,” the Journal said, quoting a source.
Mr. Tahnoon and others had invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial in January 2025. “The deal, signed four days before President Trump’s inauguration, steered $263 million to Trump family entities, according to the President’s most recent financial disclosure,” the Journal noted.
A stablecoin is designed to maintain a stable value and reduce volatility. It is pegged to a currency, commodity or other asset, which may be held in reserve to back its value.
“USD1 now has a market value of $4 billion. World Liberty says the dollars backing USD1 are invested in U.S. Treasury and other cash equivalents, generating an estimated $150 million a year in interest,” the Journal reported.
Mr. Trump was not always fond of cryptocurrencies. During his first term, he bashed Facebook’s plans to create a digital currency. He dismissed Bitcoin and its peers as “not money,” calling their value “highly volatile and based on thin air”. In 2021, he told Fox Business that Bitcoin was a “scam”. “I think they should regulate them very, very high,” he said, adding, “It takes the edge off of the dollar and the importance of the dollar.”
Policy shift
That changed as the 2024 election approached. Crypto companies funnelled more than $119 million into a non-partisan super PAC to elect pro-crypto candidates in that cycle, and Mr. Trump vowed to make the United States the “crypto capital of the planet”.
In March 2025, Mr. Trump created the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve by executive order, treating Bitcoin as a long-term reserve asset on par with gold. That July, he signed the GENIUS (Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for U.S. Stablecoins) Act, laying out regulatory guidelines for stablecoins.
Financial disclosures filed in June show he earned more than $1.4 billion from his crypto ventures. Over $500 million of it from World Liberty Financial, and another $635 million from sales of his $TRUMP meme coin. His reported income for the year was over $2.2 billion, much higher than his 2024 income of $600 million.
Founded in 2024, World Liberty Financial is at the heart of the Trump’s crypto empire. Its CEO Zach Witkoff, is the son of Mr. Trump’s West Asia envoy, Steve Witkoff. Other co-founders include Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, Barron Trump, Steve Witkoff, and the President himself. This arrangement could blur the line that separates governance and private financial interests. The Trump administration sets policy, and the President’s family and allies benefit financially.
Mr. Tahnoon’s investment is especially notable given the UAE’s position as a key U.S. partner in West Asia. Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28, Gulf countries have borne a significant share of Iran’s retaliatory attacks, with the war also disrupting maritime traffic in the region.
These relationships raise fundamental questions: Can a sitting President accept investments from a foreign government official in his companies?
Published – August 30, 2026 01:40 am IST
