President Donald Trump told a columnist he knows “nothing” about World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm partly owned by his family and a UAE‑backed investor, sparking fresh scrutiny.
In a post‑midterm interview, former President Donald Trump asserted that he knows “nothing” about World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture in which his family holds a significant stake. The comment came after columnist Ross Douthat asked Trump to explain why he has not divested from a company that recently sold a 49% share to a United Arab Emirates‑backed investor. According to Decrypt, Trump’s response highlighted the involvement of his sons in managing the family’s assets and framed the situation as a generic presidential conflict‑of‑interest issue.
World Liberty Financial announced in January that it had launched a DeFi lending platform called World Liberty Markets, built on the Dolomite protocol, and that it issues the WLFI governance token and a USD‑pegged stablecoin called USD1. The firm’s ownership structure changed in February when Aryam Investment, an entity linked to UAE national security adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed, agreed to purchase a 49% stake for $500 million. The transaction was signed by Eric Trump on behalf of the company four days before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, according to a Wall Street Journal report cited by Decrypt.
When pressed about the potential for foreign influence, Trump replied, “I don’t know,” and suggested that every president has faced similar conflicts, citing past owners of oil and, more recently, crypto assets. He emphasized that most of his wealth is held in index funds managed by Wall Street firms, and that it would be “hard to say to them, ‘Don’t do anything anymore for four years because I’m president.’” The former president also noted that his larger public profile makes any perceived conflict more visible than for previous officeholders.
World Liberty Financial’s UAE connections have drawn criticism from Democrats, with Senator Chris Murphy (D‑CT) describing the arrangement as “potentially criminal conduct.” The firm is also entangled in a lawsuit filed by Tron founder Justin Sun, whose lawyers asked a federal court to sanction World Liberty for allegedly delaying disclosure of the UAE ownership, which they claim could affect jurisdiction. World Liberty responded by labeling Sun’s move a “meritless PR stunt.”
Future developments may include congressional inquiries into the Trump family’s crypto holdings, potential SEC scrutiny of the WLFI token offering, and the outcome of Sun’s lawsuit, which could set precedent for disclosure requirements in cross‑border crypto investments.
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