Donald Trump has been accused of “corruption, plain and simple” after it emerged that a member of the UAE royal family invested $500m in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company days before the president’s inauguration. Ethics experts say the deal represents a serious conflict of interest, particularly as the Trump administration later approved the export of powerful Nvidia AI chips to the UAE.
The investment, made in January 2025, was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s national security adviser and chair of its $1.5tn wealth fund. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tahnoon’s emissaries agreed to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm co-owned by the Trump family. Documents show that $187m went to Trump entities and $31m to Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy and co-founder of World Liberty.
Donald Sherman, president of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called the deal a “blatant, disgraceful conflict of interest and a possible violation of the Constitution’s Federal Emoluments Clause”. He said Americans must question whether policies affecting the UAE serve the public interest or a foreign nation that “padded the president’s bottom line”.
Months after the investment, the White House announced that the UAE would be allowed to import 500,000 of Nvidia’s advanced AI chips, overriding security concerns that the technology could eventually reach China. A White House official denied any wrongdoing, stating that Trump is “not involved in running his businesses” and that emoluments clause claims are “bogus and irrelevant”.
Ethics experts remain alarmed, noting that Trump handed control of his companies to his sons rather than a blind trust. Kedric Payne of the Campaign Legal Center called the situation “beyond unprecedented and unimaginable”, adding that no modern president has had an international business creating such a predicament. Trump has met Tahnoon multiple times since returning to office, including a White House dinner in March.
