An investment vehicle linked to a senior Emirati official quietly acquired nearly half of World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture tied to the Trump family, just days before President Donald Trump’s January 2025 inauguration, according to a Wall Street Journal investigation published Saturday.
The Journal reports that Aryam Investment 1, an Abu Dhabi-based entity backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million. Sheikh Tahnoon is the United Arab Emirates’ national security adviser and the brother of UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The deal was signed four days before the inauguration by Eric Trump on behalf of the project but was never publicly disclosed at the time. Half of the purchase price was paid upfront. Of that amount, roughly $187 million went to Trump family-controlled entities, while at least $31 million flowed to firms affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a real estate developer who co-founded World Liberty Financial and later became the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East. Witkoff’s son, Zach Witkoff, currently serves as the project’s CEO.
As part of the transaction, executives from G42, the Abu Dhabi-based AI and technology group chaired by Sheikh Tahnoon, helped manage Aryam Investment 1 and took seats on World Liberty’s board. This made the Emirati-backed vehicle the largest outside shareholder in the crypto company, according to the Journal.
The disclosure sheds light on a previously unexplained shift in World Liberty Financial’s ownership. In June 2025, crypto news outlet reported that DT Marks DeFi LLC, the Trump-linked firm behind the project, had quietly reduced its stake in the holding company to 40%, down from 60% earlier in the year and 75% in December 2024. The company did not identify the new investor at the time.
The numbers now appear to align. A 49% outside investment would have diluted DT Marks’ earlier 75% holding to just under 40%, closely matching the figures currently listed on World Liberty’s website.
The revelation has also renewed scrutiny of World Liberty’s growing financial ties to the UAE. Weeks before the Trump administration announced a framework allowing the Emirates access to hundreds of thousands of advanced AI chips each year, another Tahnoon-led firm, MGX, used World Liberty’s USD1 stablecoin to complete a $2 billion investment in crypto exchange Binance. That transaction helped propel USD1 into the ranks of the fastest-growing stablecoins, with more than $5 billion now in circulation.
The timing of these deals has raised concerns among some U.S. lawmakers. In September 2025, Senators Elizabeth Warren and Elissa Slotkin called for investigations into potential conflicts of interest involving Steve Witkoff and White House AI and Crypto Czar David Sacks. Their request followed a New York Times report highlighting the close timing between World Liberty’s UAE-related transactions and U.S. negotiations over AI chip exports.
World Liberty Financial and the White House have denied any wrongdoing. Spokespeople told the Wall Street Journal that President Trump was not involved in the investment deal and that it had no influence on U.S. policy decisions. The company has consistently said that Trump and his family are not involved in day-to-day operations, which are handled by a management team that includes Zach Witkoff and co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro.
Sheikh Tahnoon has played a central role in the UAE’s push to position itself as a global hub for artificial intelligence and advanced technology. G42 previously faced restrictions under the Biden administration over national security concerns related to past ties with Chinese firms. Those limits were lifted under the Trump administration, which approved the sale of computing power equivalent to 35,000 of Nvidia’s advanced GB300 processors to G42 in November 2025.
Launched in October 2024, World Liberty Financial has expanded rapidly into stablecoin issuance and decentralized finance lending. The company is also pursuing a national trust bank charter to bring its USD1 stablecoin under U.S. federal supervision. President Trump and his sons Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron are listed as co-founders.
Taken together, the newly reported details offer a clearer picture of World Liberty Financial’s ownership and its international backing, while underscoring the growing intersection of crypto, geopolitics, and emerging technology at the highest levels of global finance.
