UAE Security Adviser Tahnoon Holds 49% Stake in Trump Family's Crypto Bank Venture, WSJ Reports

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and brother of the country's president, now holds the largest ownership stake behind President Trump's family crypto banking venture, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Tahnoon and his co-investors control StringZ Holding RSC, which owns 49% of WLTC Holdings, the entity created to house World Liberty Financial's planned national trust bank, the Journal reported. An entity tied to the Trump family owns 38% of WLTC Holdings, according to the same reporting, which CNBC and Crypto Briefing both cited.

Tahnoon and other investors put $500 million into World Liberty Financial around January 16, 2025, days before Trump's inauguration, in exchange for a 49% stake in the company, according to KuCoin's reporting on the deal structure.

Of that $500 million, $250 million was paid upfront through an entity called Aryam Investment 1. KuCoin reports roughly $187 million of that initial payment went to Trump family entities and about $31 million went to entities linked to Steve Witkoff, the Trump ally and real estate developer who has served as a diplomatic envoy. Trump's own 2025 financial disclosure put the total directed to Trump family entities from the deal at $263 million, according to CNBC.

In exchange for the investment, Aryam and its affiliated technology group G42 secured two board seats at World Liberty Financial, per KuCoin. The Trump family retained about 38% equity in the holding company along with 22.5 billion WLFI governance tokens, and Tahnoon's side did not get rights to token governance revenue, which stays with the Trump family.

The Bank Charter and the Chip Deal

The banking piece moved forward this month. The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted World Liberty preliminary conditional approval on August 14 to establish a federally chartered national trust bank, according to OCC records cited by Crypto Briefing. The bank is meant to issue, redeem and safeguard USD1, World Liberty's dollar-backed stablecoin, which KuCoin reports had grown to roughly a $4 billion market valuation with daily trading volume exceeding $1 billion by this month. World Liberty still has to satisfy additional conditions before the bank can open.

Tahnoon also chairs G42, the Abu Dhabi AI company. The Trump administration approved chip sales to G42 and eased limits last month on how many advanced AI chips the company could purchase, according to CNBC. A foreign national security official has expanded his financial stake in the Trump family's bank while his own AI company gets loosened access to controlled U.S. chip exports, drawing scrutiny.

Representative Ro Khanna has raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest, questioning whether financial ties between UAE sovereign-linked entities and the Trump family could influence American technology and regulatory decisions, according to KuCoin's reporting.

What World Liberty Says

World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman told CNBC the company is "a private American financial technology company, not a political organization" and said its trust company operates under separate governance. "No one at World Liberty works for the U.S. government and there are no conflicts of interest," Wachsman said, adding the company neither seeks nor receives special treatment. He did not address the specific ownership structure reported by the Journal.

A sitting foreign government official controls the largest stake in a bank tied to a sitting American president's family, and that same official's separate company just got easier access to export-controlled U.S. technology under that president's administration. No law has been shown to have been broken, no investigation has been announced, and no charges have been filed. The appearance of a potential conflict exists on the face of the public filings and disclosures.

World Liberty's defenders point out that Trump family members do not run day-to-day operations post-inauguration, according to the company. The chip access decisions for G42 went through the normal executive branch process, and there's no source showing Tahnoon personally lobbied for the specific export easing. Correlation in timing is not proof of a quid pro quo, and the White House has said Trump "only acts in the best interest of the American public" while denying any conflicts of interest.

The Journal's reporting identified StringZ Holding RSC as the specific vehicle for Tahnoon's 49% stake in the bank holding company, a detail that hadn't been public before. Congress, which has oversight of chartered national banks through the OCC, may hold hearings on the ownership structure now that the trust bank has cleared preliminary approval. Khanna's concerns have not yet produced any formal congressional inquiry, hearing, or legislative response as of this reporting.