Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed al Nahyan, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) nationwide safety advisor, owns the most important stake within the holding firm for the Trump household’s deliberate crypto financial institution, The Wall Avenue Journal (WSJ) reported Aug. 27.
The Treasury Division’s Workplace of the Comptroller of the Foreign money (OCC) granted conditional approval Aug. 14 for a federally chartered nationwide belief financial institution to World Liberty Monetary, a crypto enterprise co-founded by Trump members of the family and Alex and Zach Witkoff, the sons of billionaire Trump advisor Steve Witkoff. (RELATED: Witkoff, Trump Family Crypto Firm Granted Conditional Bank Charter From Federal Regulator)
An unprecedented transfer, it marked the primary time a nationwide financial institution constitution was issued to a sitting president’s household enterprise.
13 days later, WSJ reported that an funding car managed by Sheikh Tahnoun and different co-investors, StringZ Holding RSC, owned the most important stake within the financial institution’s holding firm at 49 p.c. The OCC required StringZ Holding, international stakeholders and entities affiliated with the Trump household to signal a passive investor settlement, in line with WSJ. Below this settlement, shareholders commit to not search management over the financial institution or intrude with its administration.
Sheikh Tahnoun serves because the UAE’s nationwide safety adviser, heads the Emirati state AI firm G42—which the administration has permitted to purchase superior American chips—and is continuously referred to within the press because the “spy sheikh”. He’s additionally the brother of the UAE’s monarch, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
The Trump household’s ties to the UAE, through World Liberty Monetary, have raised eyebrows in Washington, D.C., and within the media. Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren blasted the connection as “corruption, plain and easy” in February and called for an investigation, together with Democratic Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin.
Sheikh Tahnoon reportedly made a secret $500 million funding in World Liberty Monetary days earlier than Trump’s inauguration in January 2025.
Months after the deal was signed, the Trump administration reversed a Biden-era rule proscribing superior chip gross sales. The UAE and permitted firms, together with Sheikh Tahnoon’s G42, not want a U.S. authorities license to buy chips from Nvidia Corp or Superior Micro Units Inc. The transfer additionally eradicated caps on what number of chips will be bought to these international entities. (RELATED: Trump Loops Emiratis Into American-Made Chips Supply Chain)
Warren wrote a letter to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick earlier in August demanding he clarify why the administration gave the UAE entry to the superior, delicate know-how.
“It’s deeply regarding that a few of those self same UAE entities will now have license-free entry to superior AI chips, regardless of reported warnings from the Division of Commerce’s personal workers that the know-how might get diverted to China,” she wrote.
The senator referred to as the timing of the administration’s resolution to ease export controls after Sheikh Tahnoon’s funding in World Liberty Monetary “alarming.”
The UAE additionally reportedly exerted influence to safe Trump’s pardon of Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, a Chinese language-born Canadian billionaire felon. Binance, the world’s largest crypto alternate, was a significant backer of World Liberty Monetary following Trump’s election win, WSJ reported.
In 2023, Zhao pleaded responsible to failing to implement an efficient anti-money-laundering program and obtained an almost four-month jail sentence. His firm additionally agreed to pay a historic $4.3 billion settlement.
Zhao now lives within the UAE and has touted the monarchy’s embrace of cryptocurrency.
