Are you outrated yet?
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that four days before President Trump's inauguration, the Abu Dhabi royal family bought a $500 million stake in the Trump family's crypto firm, World Liberty Financial. The $500 million was to be paid in two installments, $250 million immediately and another $500 million in July of last year. Of the $250 million paid, the WSJ reports that:
The buyers would pay half up front, steering $187 million to Trump family entities.
The deal with World Liberty Financial, which hasn’t previously been reported, was signed by Eric Trump, the president’s son. At least $31 million was also slated to flow to entities affiliated with the family of Steve Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder who weeks earlier had been named U.S. envoy to the Middle East, the documents said.
The investment was backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal who has been pushing the U.S. for access to tightly guarded artificial intelligence chips.
Tahnoon—sometimes referred to as the “spy sheikh”—is brother to the United Arab Emirates’ president, the government’s national security adviser, as well as the leader of the oil-rich country’s largest wealth fund.
Their investment paid off a few months later:
Two months after the March meeting, the administration committed to give the tiny Gulf monarchy access to around 500,000 of the most advanced AI chips a year—enough to build one of the world’s biggest AI data center clusters. The framework agreement called for roughly one-fifth of the chips to go to G42, The Wall Street Journal previously reported.
G42 had connections to Huawei and other Chinese firms but they claim to have severed their relationships with China in 2023. Sure they did.
World Liberty had this to say:
“We made the deal in question because we strongly believe that it was what was best for our company as we continue to grow,” said David Wachsman, a spokesman for World Liberty, of the Aryam investment. “The idea that, when raising capital, 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.”
Of the first $250 million, assuming the WSJ's reporting is correct, 87% was paid to the Trump and Witkoff families. That means that only $32 million of the total was to pay for new shares in WLF. The capital raise represents 12.8% of the total deal. What if $249,999,999 was paid to the President and his cronies and only $1 went to the company? Would that still be a "capital raise" that the company shouldn't have to disclose?
The President getting $187 million (and don't forget the Boeing 747 "gifted" to him by Qatar, another member of the UAE) from the royal family of a Middle East country is not just a capital raise by a privately held American company. Does anyone really believe the purpose of this transaction was to raise money for WLF? Does anyone really believe Trump knew nothing about this?
The WSJ was not able to determine if the second installment was paid or to whom it was paid. Don't you think that's something we ought to know? This is corruption on a grand scale. If you aren't outraged, you aren't paying attention.
