Spy Sheikh Bought Secret Stake in Trump Company
The Wall Street Journal broke a story about a secret partnership between a UAE sheik and the Trump-Witkoff crime families. Because cryptocurrency is an ideal way to disguise political payoffs as financial transactions, it is the perfect con for Don the Con. Trump pockets billions while allowing the transfer of cutting-edge chip technology to China.
Four days before Trump’s second inauguration, according to the Wall Street Journal, a sheikh in the United Arab Republic royal family, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, purchased a 49% stake in Trump’s cryptocurrency venture for $500M. This partnership had not been previously disclosed. The investment steered $187M to the Trump family and $31M to the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s golf buddy and Special Envoy to the Middle East, raising questions about potential conflicts of interest and violations of the emoluments clause.
In May, Witkoff’s son Zach announced that the sheikh’s investment firm, MGX, would invest $2B in Binance—the largest-ever investment into a cryptocurrency company—using World Liberty’s stablecoin, USD1. To maintain USD-1 stablecoins’ 1-to-1 tie to the dollar, World Liberty parks the $2B in Treasurys and pockets the $80M annual interest. Later that same month, Trump visits the UAE, where it was announced that the UAE will be allowed to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips annually. The deal broke from Biden-era restrictions that limited high-end chip exports to the UAE due to concerns over technology exports to China. “This sure looks like a violation of the foreign emoluments clause,” said ethics law professor Kathleen Clark, “and more to the point, it looks like a bribe.”
In September, Trump signed off on a deal giving MGX, Oracle, and Silver Lake an 80% stake in US TikTok, turning it into a right-wing propaganda vehicle. In October, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had pled guilty to prevent the use of Binance for money laundering.