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WASHINGTON, D.C. – This week in front of a Dubai audience, Zach Witkoff, co-founder of the Trump family crypto firm World Liberty Financial (WLFl), announced an ethically-nightmarish $2 billion deal between WLFl and United Arab Emirates-backed investment firm MGX and Binance, of which “virtually every detail […] contained a conflict of interest.” In attendance was Chinese crypto billionaire, alleged fraudster, and possible top $TRUMP coin holder Justin Sun. 

Government watchdog Accountable.US called the deal a cause for renewed scrutiny of the conflicts of interest involving Zach’s father, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s billionaire Special Envoy to the Middle East and one of Trump’s “closest and most constant friends.” Steve Witkoff also co-founded  World Liberty Financial Inc. (WLFI) alongside the Trump family, which launched controversial “meme coins” just days before Trump’s inauguration — just one of many of the Trump family’s sprawling, unprecedented crypto ventures that have sounded alarms with ethics experts over their potential for facilitating corruption, foreign influence, and special favors for corporate and bad actors. When he joined the Trump administration, Witkoff kept his holdings close, transferring them to his sons.

An Accountable.US Review Spotlights What You Need to Know About Steve Witkoff: 

  • In March 2025, the Trump family appeared poised to use WLFI to acquire a stake in Binance, the “world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange.” At the same time, Binance’s centibillionaire founder and former CEO Changpeng Zhao—who pleaded guilty to money laundering charges and was fined $4.3 billion in 2023—was pushing Trump for a pardon, according to Wall Street Journal reporting. Zhao has denied the reporting. 
  • After Trump named him Special Envoy in November 2024, Steve Witkoff reportedly met with Changpeng Zhao at the Bitcoin MENA 2024 conference in December 2024, where Witkoff, Zhao, and Donald Trump’s son Eric Trump were all featured speakers. Despite his official role, Witkoff’s X social media profile continued to promote WLFI at the time, saying “Be #Defiant @worldlibertyfi” as of mid-March 2025. 
  • In possible violation of ethics standards, anonymous sources have reported that Witkoff—while he was serving in his official capacity as Special Envoy—was involved in the Trump family’s negotiations with Binance. Additionally, Witkoff’s son Zach, a WLFI co-founder, was later pictured arm-in-arm with Zhao as they met in Abu Dhabi to talk about “pushing crypto to the next level.” 
  • Then, in May 2025, Witkoff’s son Zach Witkoff appeared alongside Eric Trump to announce that United Arab Emirates (UAE) state-backed investment fund MGX would make a $2 billion deal with Binance using WLFI’s tokens, creating “a formal link” between Binance and WLFI. The deal represented “a major contribution by a foreign government to president Trump’s private venture” and could generate tens of millions of dollars a year for the Trump family and WLFI stakeholders like Steve Witkoff. 
  • Previously, in March 2025, the UAE’s MGX investment fund acquired a $2 billion stake in Binance, representing “the largest investment ever paid in crypto and Binance’s first institutional investment.” The deal was poised to “turn the Trump family into business partners” with the UAE’s royal family if they were to actually secure the deal between WLFI and Binance. 
  • Witkoff has also done business with the UAE in recent years, selling Manhattan’s Park Lane Hotel to UAE sovereign wealth fund the Qatari Investment Authority for $623 million.

“An administration’s official envoy to the Middle East should never be the middleman in the  President’s personal overseas business dealings—especially with convicted financial fraudsters—but here we are,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk. “It is not normal that Donald Trump’s sons and the son of his billionaire special envoy and crypto venture business partner are hatching murky personal business deals backed by the United Arab Emirates who want who knows what in return. What interests of the American people are being used as a bargaining chip? The President continues to test the limits of what his allies in Congress are willing to go along with when it comes to corruption and leveraging the office to gobble up new riches for his family around the globe.” 

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