Trump's Secret $500M UAE Crypto Deal: How a Royal Family Investment Could Compromise US Foreign Policy

The $500M Deal That Went Unnoticed

Days before Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, an investment firm controlled by a senior member of the United Arab Emirates royal family secretly signed a deal to pay $500 million to buy almost half of a cryptocurrency startup founded by the Trump family. Under any other president, such an arrangement would cause a political earthquake in Washington.

But this latest example of corruption involving Trump and his family business hardly made a blip over the past few days, relegated to a passing headline in a relentless news cycle often dominated by Trump's actions and statements.

Why This Scandal Matters

This scandal deserves our attention: a half-billion-dollar transaction with a foreign government official, executed in the shadow of Trump's inauguration, which directly enriched the president and his family. The deal to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the crypto company founded by the Trump family and several allies in the fall of 2024 during Trump's presidential campaign, was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, one of the most powerful officials in the UAE.

Known as the "spy sheikh," Tahnoon is the brother of the UAE's president and serves as national security adviser. He also oversees one of the largest investment empires in the world, serving as chair of two Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds, which have $1.5 trillion in assets, and G42, a firm focused on artificial intelligence.

The Pattern of Monetizing the Presidency

It's dizzying to keep up with the ways that Trump has monetized the presidency and used it for personal profit in his second term. The Trump Organization, run by the president's sons, has negotiated foreign real estate deals worth billions of dollars, some of which involve private companies backed by governments of the three wealthiest Arab petrostates: Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

In May, as Trump prepared to visit the Middle East, Qatar's government donated a $400 million luxury Boeing jet, which is being refitted by the US military so Trump can use it as Air Force One. It was probably the most expensive gift from a foreign government in US history.

The Crypto Connection

In late May, the president hosted a private dinner at his Virginia golf club for the 220 largest buyers of his memecoin, called $Trump, which is a type of cryptocurrency connected to an online joke or mascot and has no inherent value. The top 25 buyers in the crypto contest got invited to a VIP reception with Trump and a White House tour. In all, the Trump family's crypto business raked in about $148 million from the contest, most of it from foreign or anonymous buyers.

Despite the sheer scale of these conflicts surrounding Trump over the past year, the $500 million deal involving World Liberty and the UAE's Tahnoon is "the only known case of a foreign government official purchasing a major stake in a Trump company after his election." By intertwining his personal fortune with the ruling families of the Gulf, Trump has compromised his ability – and the ability of his entire administration – to negotiate foreign policy and act as an honest broker.

The AI Technology Connection

Over the past decade, Tahnoon has steered foreign policy negotiations with the US over major issues including fighting terrorism, economic investments and securing UAE access to advanced computer technology. In March, he visited Washington and met with Trump, gaining access to top cabinet members and being feted at a White House dinner – honors normally bestowed on a visiting head of state. The public did not know about the secret deal Tahnoon's investment firm had signed two months earlier with the Trump family's crypto company.

Two weeks after MGX's $2 billion investment in the Trump family's crypto firm, the Trump administration allowed the UAE to buy hundreds of thousands of advanced computer chips critical for AI development. The chips are made by US companies, especially Nvidia, and the Biden administration had restricted how many chips certain foreign countries can buy to prevent the technology from being misused. But Trump scrapped those restrictions.

The White House Response

The White House insists that there was no connection between the World Liberty crypto transaction and the administration's decision to sell AI technology to the UAE – and claims that Trump and Witkoff have no conflict of interest because they have stepped aside from their family businesses. "The president has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities," the White House counsel, David Warrington, said on Sunday.

While Trump's aides argue that he's living up to the highest ethical standards, the Republican-led Congress has shown little interest in investigating an astonishing series of corrupt actions and self-enrichment that would have devastated any other presidency. And as Trump and his family tally the expanding profits from their crypto empire, the rest of us must reckon with the cost to our democracy.