Trump Says He “Knows Nothing” of $500M UAE Stake in WLFI

Trump Denies Knowledge of UAE Stake

President Donald Trump says he “knows nothing” about the United Arab Emirates investors behind a reported $500 million purchase of a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, the family-backed firm behind the WLFI altcoin. Speaking in a CBS 60 Minutes interview aired Sunday, Trump acknowledged he co-owns the venture but said he was unaware of the foreign investment. Pressed by interviewer Ross Douthat on whether a comparable arrangement involving the Biden family would raise corruption questions, Trump answered that he did not know the details, adding that the bulk of his fortune sits with large Wall Street firms and index funds, in stock and other conventional instruments. He described crypto as a modern counterpart to assets past presidents owned, such as oil. The stake itself is well documented: an investment company backed by Emirati national security adviser Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan bought the 49% holding for $500 million shortly before Trump's inauguration, and Tahnoon and co-investors also hold 49% of WLTC Holdings, a company connected to WLFI. Trump said the firm is run day to day by his sons, Don Jr. and Eric, and that he cannot ask them to halt business for four years just because he is president. The firm launched in September 2024, marketed with Trump as chief digital assets advocate and his sons as web3 ambassadors. The ownership question has also reached federal court. Justin Sun, founder of the Layer 1 blockchain protocol Tron, invested $45 million in WLFI and sued in April, arguing that the freeze of his tokens was unlawful and fraudulent. He now alleges the company first reported itself as Florida-based and only amended its papers after an August hearing, listing 22 ownership entities across Florida, Delaware, Puerto Rico and the UAE, and he is asking the court for sanctions over the late disclosure. World Liberty Financial countersued in May, calling Sun's case a baseless publicity exercise. The advocacy group Public Citizen estimated in August that Trump-linked digital asset investors carry paper losses of at least $4.7 billion, including at least $1 billion tied to WLFI, losses that have tracked the WLFI price lower this year.

Democrats Take Both Chambers

Those concerns sharpened after this month's midterm elections handed Democrats majorities in both the House and the Senate, a shift that raises the odds of congressional pressure on Trump's crypto ventures and the broader sector. The Trump family's crypto activities have recently come under review in Congress, and Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal has already asked WLFI and its related companies to produce documents as part of an inquiry into potential conflicts of interest, making the firm an early first oversight target for the new Congress. With committee control comes the power to summon executives and compel records, and holders have treated WLFI's $0.0450 support as the level to defend since the results. On the show, Trump was pressed on whether foreign investors could put money into WLFI to influence a sitting president. He said he did not know, while arguing that business conflicts involving presidents and the people around them surfaced in earlier administrations as well. Trump said he was already wealthy before taking office and that his son tracks his finances. Asked whether selling his stake would ease the concerns, he replied that his family's business deserves respect. When Douthat pointed out that no previous president owned a crypto company, Trump said every president runs into similar arguments during a term. “Every president has a problem,” he said. Douthat's questions covered both the family's stake and the firm's foreign investors, with Trump repeatedly returning to the line that his sons run the business and that he does not involve himself in daily operations.

Two Fronts Converge on WLFI

The same ownership papers now sit at the center of both fights. Sun's sanctions motion attacks the amended disclosure, with its 22 entities and four jurisdictions, on which the firm's federal-court defense rests; if the judge finds it came too late, WLFI's exit route from US jurisdiction narrows just as a California refiling looms. Blumenthal's document demand adds a political layer, because the records Congress seeks overlap with what the court is weighing. For holders, the legal overhang caps the recovery case: the company launched a WLFI token buyback after a slide of roughly 60% over the past year, and our WLFI technical analysis keeps the $0.0450 floor as the level that matters most.