US President Donald Trump has denied having any knowledge of a reported multimillion-dollar investment involving an Abu Dhabi royal and World Liberty Financial (WLFI), a crypto platform tied to his family.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Trump dismissed questions about the deal, saying his family was handling it. “I don’t know about it,” Trump said. “My sons are handling that– my family is handling it. I guess they get investments from different people.”
JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇦🇪 President Trump says he did not know Abu Dhabi invested $500 million in his World Liberty crypto project.
“I don’t know about it. My sons are handling that, I guess they get investments from people.” pic.twitter.com/AOBosetnpE
— Bitcoin Black (@Bitcoinblacck) February 2, 2026
The comments follow a report by The Wall Street Journal claiming that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a senior member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, acquired a 49% stake in WLFI for $500 million just days before Trump’s inauguration.
Inside the WLFI deal and foreign influence concerns
According to the report, the investment was executed through a Tahnoon-backed firm, Aryam Investment 1, which allegedly made an initial $250 million payment. Of that amount, roughly $187 million reportedly flowed to Trump-family entities, while another $31 million was directed to a company linked to WLFI co-founders Zak Folkman and Chase Herro.
If accurate, the agreement would make Aryam WLFI’s largest shareholder, fueling concerns about foreign influence over a US-based crypto firm closely associated with a sitting president. Trump is listed among nine WLFI founders, alongside his sons Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump, and Barron Trump.
Sheikh Tahnoon, who maintains diplomatic ties with Washington, is also the chairman of Group 42, an Abu Dhabi AI conglomerate that received US approval in December to purchase advanced semiconductor chips from Nvidia and AMD.
Political scrutiny intensifies over Trump’s crypto ties
The reported investment has renewed political and regulatory scrutiny around Trump’s involvement in the crypto sector.
In January, Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren called on US banking regulators to pause WLFI’s bank charter application until Trump divests his stake in the platform. However, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency rejected Warren’s request, stating that political or personal financial ties would not influence its review process.
Responding to the controversy, WLFI spokesperson David Wachsman told Bloomberg that the company was being unfairly singled out. He argued that applying special standards to a privately held American company because of its founders was “ridiculous and un-American.”
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