A UAE-backed investment firm quietly agreed to buy nearly half of President Donald Trump’s stake in World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup with ties to the president, days before he returned to the White House, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Ayam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi company backed by Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan, signed a deal to buy a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million in January 2025, the paper said, citing documents and people familiar with the matter.
Half of that amount was paid up front, with $187 million going to companies controlled by the Trump family, and tens of millions more to companies with ties to co-founders, including relatives of the US special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, the report said.
The agreement was reportedly signed by Eric Trump. The paper reported that the deal was not made public, even though World Liberty later revealed that the Trump family’s stock had plummeted.
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Tahnoun, the UAE president’s brother and national security adviser, is a key figure in Abu Dhabi’s push to become a world leader in artificial intelligence. Under the Biden administration, his efforts to secure advanced U.S.-made AI chips were limited by concerns that sensitive technology could reach China, particularly through companies such as G42.
These efforts gained momentum after President Trump was elected. Tahnoun has held multiple meetings with President Trump and other senior U.S. officials, promising that within months his administration would grant the UAE access to hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips a year.
Structure of the deal. Source: WSJ
The publication reported that G42 executives helped run Ayam Investment 1 and took seats on World Liberty’s board of directors as part of the deal, making Ayam the startup’s largest outside shareholder. Weeks before the US-UAE chip framework was announced, another company led by Tahnoun, MGX, completed a $2 billion investment in Binance using World Liberty’s stablecoin.
World Liberty and the White House reportedly denied any wrongdoing. A spokesperson told the Journal that President Trump was not involved in the deal and does not have any influence on U.S. policy.
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Last year, Democratic senators called on U.S. authorities to investigate World Liberty Financial’s alleged links to token sales and sanctioned foreign parties. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Jack Reed cited the following assertion in a November letter to the Justice Department and Treasury Department: $WLFI Governance tokens were purchased by blockchain addresses tied to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, as well as organizations linked to Russia and Iran.
Even more controversial is the $WLFIThe ownership structure will allow companies associated with the Trump family to control the majority of token revenue. Lawmakers argue that this poses a direct conflict of interest because most of the proceeds from the token sale will flow to the president’s family.
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