Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Bitcoiners, how's everybody doing? One month after President Trump won re-election, his son Eric grabbed a microphone and jogged up some stairs to the main stage of a major crypto conference in Abu Dhabi. Are you happy we have a new president in the United States? Please tell me you're happy. This was the same United Arab Emirates crypto conference you heard about in the last episode.
Eric was the keynote speaker. He wore a navy suit, crisp white shirt, no tie, tucked in above a silver belt buckle. His blonde hair slicked back.
Chapter 2: What was Eric Trump's role at the UAE crypto conference?
Obviously to all our friends in the UAE, this country is amazing. How many people in here are from the UAE? Our family loves you. Our family loves you. What did you make of Eric Trump's speech at the time? I think at the time it was something we really glossed over. But I think in light of the deal that we later learned about, it certainly sticks out a lot more.
That's our colleague Rebecca Ballhaus. She's part of the Wall Street Journal reporting team that's been investigating the Trump family's crypto venture, World Liberty Financial. I've been focusing in the past year or so mostly on the Trump family and the various ways that they've been profiting from the presidency.
In less than two years, World Liberty Financial has earned the Trump family at least $1.2 billion in cash. And a lot of that has come through foreign-owned businesses. As we examined in yesterday's episode, one of the companies they worked with was the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. The other involves the United Arab Emirates.
Just weeks after Eric Trump's keynote speech in Abu Dhabi, World Liberty Financial went into business with a member of the UAE royal family. And the deal that they made was kept a secret. Until we revealed it in January of this year, it had never been disclosed publicly. We had spent a year at that point focusing on Binance and World Liberty.
And to learn that another connected but separate player had been, in fact, giving the largest injection of money into this company was just a shock to learn that, you know, there had been someone else behind the scenes this whole time. This secret deal was remarkable. A foreign government official getting deeply involved with an incoming U.S. president's company. And what are the implications?
Typically, presidents take pains to avoid, you know, any optics that might look like they're conducting diplomacy in a way that favors their own bottom line. A foreign government official taking a stake in the president's company right before he becomes president is a first and is not something we've seen in modern American politics.
Since that deal took place, World Liberty Financial has become a major player in the crypto industry and a money-making machine for the Trump family. And the UAE finally got something it's wanted from the U.S. for years. A lawyer for the White House said that, quote, the president has no involvement in business deals that would implicate his constitutional responsibilities.
And a spokeswoman for the Trump Organization said the idea that politics has enriched the Trump family is, quote, laughable. Over the course of two episodes, we're diving into the secret dealings that put World Liberty Financial on the map, while personally enriching the Trump family. Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Jessica Mendoza.
It's Saturday, April 25th. This is Episode 2, The Deal with the Spy Shake. The United Arab Emirates is a tiny but extremely wealthy nation on the Arabian Peninsula. And for decades, the country has been gearing up for a post-oil future. To do that, it has its sights set on becoming a world leader in artificial intelligence.
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Chapter 3: How much profit has World Liberty Financial generated for the Trump family?
And so they really launched this full court press to win over the incoming Trump administration. After the U.S. presidential election, Taknoon began finding ways to get close to the incoming Trump administration. And an opportunity presented itself in the Trump family's new crypto company, World Liberty Financial.
So, four days before Trump's inauguration, Taknoon and some co-investors bought half of World Liberty, purchasing 49% of the Trump's company for half a billion dollars. The deal is signed January 16th, 2025, four days before the inauguration. It's signed by Eric Trump. Signing on the UAE side were two executives working for Takhnun.
Half of the purchase price was paid up front, immediately steering $187 million to Trump family entities. It was not disclosed. They never announced this partnership. This was a massive deal, and it was kept a secret. My colleague Sam Kessler called me on a weekend and said that he had reviewed company documents that backed up that the Sheikh had struck this deal with World Liberty.
And I think my jaw just dropped. It was, you know, that was a big surprise. A World Liberty spokesman said that the deal was in the company's best interest and that the president has had no involvement in either this deal or in the company since taking office.
The spokesman also said the idea that, quote, a privately held American company should be held to some unique standard that no other similar company would be held is both ridiculous and un-American. A person familiar with Takhnin's investment said that it was not discussed with President Trump.
What's kind of amazing is that at the time of the investment, World Liberty doesn't have any products, which, you know, if you're looking at a typical deal, you're going to say that's not a great deal for this investor. Right. So what was it that they were purchasing exactly? What did they get in return? I mean, I think that's the question.
But certainly, if you're talking about trying to avoid optics of what would look like a deal where, you know, it begs the question of what one party is getting, this doesn't necessarily follow what previous presidents might have done. And that's not all. After that deal with World Liberty was done, Tachnun, now a major secret owner in the Trump's company, made another move.
Sheikh Tachnun runs several other companies, including the company MGX. We told you about MGX in the last episode. It's that company that's backed by the UAE government. And it's also the company that used World Liberty's USD1 to make a $2 billion investment in the cryptocurrency exchange Binance. You may remember, that transaction was a huge moment for World Liberty.
It ultimately allowed World Liberty to pocket $80 million in income annually. And it legitimized the company and USD1 in the eyes of the crypto world.
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Chapter 4: What was the significance of the secret deal with the UAE royal family?
MGX is Taqnoon's company. But when that $2 billion transaction happened, it wasn't public that MGX and World Liberty shared ownership, Taqnoon. So World Liberty used it as an endorsement. Like, hey, this major Emirati investor is using our stablecoin, and you should too.
World Liberty presented this MGX investment using USD1 as an enormous vote of confidence in World Liberty and in its stablecoin. And so the fact that Zach Witkoff took the stage and was saying, we thank MGX for their trust in us. We thank MGX and Binance for their trust in us.
At the time that he knew that both MGX and World Liberty were, you know, partly owned by the same person was just pretty shocking to me. What is the risk of going into business with a foreign government official in this way?
the risk is that then every deal you do with that foreign government or every interaction you have with them is sort of called into question whether this is part of a business deal or whether you're doing this in the best interest of the U.S. Three months after the secret deal, Tahnoon goes to the White House. That's next.
In March of 2025, three months after Taknoon had secretly bought a stake in World Liberty Financial, President Trump invited him to the White House. Taknoon arrives in Washington with his delegation, and Trump hosts this big White House dinner for Taknoon and his delegation.
And he invites the vice president and several cabinet members, including the secretary of state and the secretary of the treasury. We see Taknoon in photos that the White House releases sitting across from Trump. Taknoon got the full red carpet treatment. Photos showed them together in the Oval Office, sitting side by side, Trump with a huge grin on his face.
And what I heard from national security officials and former national security officials that I spoke to was that they were pretty stunned to see this level of access that Taknoon is getting. Because under previous administrations, what usually happens with a visiting foreign official is that they'll meet their U.S. counterpart. So for Taknoon, that would be the national security advisor.
And Takhnun did at one point meet with Biden, but he didn't get this kind of splashy White House dinner with the president and a half dozen cabinet members. And so people who kind of know how these things usually worked found that pretty remarkable.
A big part of Takhnun's visit was to get artificial intelligence chips, the same chips that the Biden administration had limited over concerns about the UAE's links to China. He's there in large part to push for a chip deal with the U.S., He meets with Trump in the Oval Office. He makes this $1.4 trillion investment pledge. He says the UAE will invest in the U.S.
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Chapter 5: What are the implications of foreign investment in a president's company?
When he gives you a handshake, when he makes a deal, that's the deal.
National security concerns were not mentioned. And on his flight home, Trump boasted about his relationship with the UAE.
This has been an amazing trip. We've raised trillions of dollars of investment for our country. And we're dealing with really good people that have been abandoned in a way by our country and by the United States.
Then, in January of 2026, Tahnoon's secret stake in World Liberty Financial suddenly wasn't a secret anymore. Because Rebecca in The Wall Street Journal published the reporting, saying that four months before the U.S. agreed to sell all those AI chips to the UAE, Tahnoon had bought almost half of Trump's World Liberty Financial. And the news spread quickly.
There are times when I see a lead of a news story that is so startling to me, I have to read it out loud.
There are brand new revelations that raise serious questions about the depth of Donald Trump's second term grift.
This sheik wanted AI chips, so he said, all right, I'm going to buy Trump's crypto and I get the chips. It was literally a sheik down.
After the news broke, more than a dozen Democrats condemned the Trump family's decision to accept an investment from a foreign official. Democrats, as you would expect, were pretty apoplectic about our reporting. We see Senator Chris Murphy goes to the Senate floor and condemns the deal. The White House has become a nonstop corruption machine.
Congressman Gregory Meeks is saying that he wants a review of these conflicts of interest and foreign influence to be completed and shared with the Congress. And Meeks kind of points his finger and shouts, Stop covering for the president.
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