WSJ: Trump Family Secretly Sold $500M Stake in World Liberty Financial to UAE Royal

A secret deal signed just 96 hours before Donald Trump’s second inauguration handed a 49% stake in the First Family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial (WLFI), to a UAE sovereign entity. The investigation by The Wall Street Journal, corroborated by the Washington Post, reveals that Abu Dhabi royal Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan funneled $500 million into the project via Aryam Investment 1.

The Receipt: $187M Direct Payout

The capital injection was not a passive investment. Of the $250 million paid upfront in January 2025, approximately $187 million was routed directly to two entities controlled by the Trump family: DT Marks DEFI LLC and DT Marks SC LLC. This structure allowed the then-President-elect to monetize his governance token allocation before the project had a fully operational product.

Additional flows included:

• $31 million to entities tied to Steve Witkoff (later appointed U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East).
• $31 million to co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro.

The Quid Pro Quo?

The timing of the deal, signed in January 2025 but undisclosed until now, aligns with significant U.S. policy shifts favoring Sheikh Tahnoon’s business empire. Tahnoon, often called the “Spy Sheikh,” controls G42, an AI conglomerate that had previously faced U.S. export bans due to China ties.

The Trump administration later approved the export of 500,000 advanced AI chips to the UAE, with a stipulated 20% earmarked specifically for G42.

The WSJ report also highlights that Tahnoon’s investment vehicle, MGX, later used WLFI’s USD1 stablecoin to settle a $2 billion investment in Binance, a move that coincided with lobbying efforts for a presidential pardon for Binance founder Changpeng Zhao (CZ).

Market Reaction

WLFI, now transferable following a July 2025 governance vote, saw volatile trading on the news. The token hovered around $0.13, with volume surging over $300 million on major exchanges as traders digested the implications of the sovereign backing. While the project’s treasury is flushed with capital, the revelation of foreign state ownership in a sitting President’s family business is likely to trigger immediate congressional inquiries into violations of the Emoluments Clause.