Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.
Four days before Donald Trump’s inauguration last year, lieutenants to an Abu Dhabi royal secretly signed a deal with the Trump family to purchase a 49% stake in their fledgling cryptocurrency venture for half a billion dollars, according to company documents and people familiar with the matter. 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, according to people familiar with the matter. 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. He oversees a more than $1.3 trillion empire funded by his personal fortune and state money that spans from fish farms to AI to surveillance, making him one of the most powerful single investors in the world.
The deal marked something unprecedented in American politics: a foreign government official taking a major ownership stake in an incoming U.S. president’s company.
Under the Biden administration, Tahnoon’s efforts to get AI hardware had been largely stymied over fears that the sensitive technology could be diverted to China. Of particular concern was one of Tahnoon’s own companies, the AI firm G42, which had stoked alarm among intelligence officials and lawmakers over its close ties to the sanctioned tech giant Huawei and other Chinese firms. The company said it severed ties with China in late 2023, but concerns persisted.
Trump’s election reopened the door for him. In the months that followed, Tahnoon met multiple times with Trump, Witkoff and other U.S. officials, including in a March visit to the White House where the sheikh told officials he was eager to work with the U.S. on AI and other issues, according to people familiar with the matter.
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.
