Circle Shareholder Sues Trump, World Liberty Amid $2 Billion Investment Controversy
Key Facts
J. Benjamin Greenberg, a shareholder in Circle Internet Group, sued President Donald Trump and World Liberty Financial, accusing the venture of unlawful competition that caused financial harm to him and Circle investors, according to Bloomberg. The lawsuit pits a shareholder's interests against the cryptocurrency venture linked to the president's family, with the plaintiff invoking a constitutional prohibition concerning dealings with foreign governments. Bloomberg said Greenberg accuses Trump of violating the U.S. Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause. The clause prohibits the president from accepting payments from foreign governments without congressional approval. Greenberg bases his lawsuit on allegations of unlawful competition and financial harm, alongside his claim that the president's dealings violated that constitutional restriction.
Against the backdrop of the controversy over Emirati investments, a report by Democratic minority staff on the Senate Banking Committee said Aryam completed a deal worth half a billion dollars to buy a stake in World Liberty Financial. The stake acquired amounted to 49% of the company, and the report said the deal preceded Trump's inauguration, placing it before he took office. The report also addressed a separate $2 billion investment by MGX in cryptocurrency exchange Binance. According to the congressional report, the company used World Liberty Financial's USD1 stablecoin for the investment, providing the commercial link between the investment and the president's family venture. The half-billion-dollar amount relates to the purchase of an ownership stake in World Liberty, while the $2 billion represents the value of an investment in Binance made using its stablecoin.
In its earlier report, the Democratic minority on the Senate Banking Committee linked investments by Emirati entities in the Trump family's venture to concerns about decisions made by the U.S. administration. Those concerns included access to advanced U.S. artificial intelligence chips, amid congressional scrutiny of the relationship between business interests and government policy. The committee's presentation of the report said the decisions in question included "providing access to advanced U.S. AI chips." In earlier coverage by the Associated Press, World Liberty rejected suggestions of a conflict of interest between the Emirati deal and the president's policy. The company said at the time that the deal "is unrelated to the president's policy on chips," a position issued during the earlier controversy over the Emirati dealings.
Circle, in which Greenberg owns shares, has an investment and commercial relationship with Binance itself, announcing in September 2026 that the exchange had invested $100 million in the company. The investment was part of an expansion of their strategic partnership, according to Circle's announcement to investors about the agreement. The announcement included the renewal of the companies' commercial agreement for 5 years, adding the Circle-Binance partnership to the commercial backdrop of the dispute raised by the shareholder. In another aspect of the Trump family's interests in World Liberty, Reuters reported in April 2026 that the venture's bylaws provide for 75% of revenue from WLFI token sales to go to the family. That percentage applies to token sales revenue under those bylaws, a financial arrangement for the family within the venture facing Greenberg's allegations.
World Liberty Financial previously faced a separate legal dispute with cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, who sued the company, according to Reuters. Greenberg's action adds to that earlier dispute involving the venture, with the Circle shareholder basing his case on allegations of unlawful competition and the Foreign Emoluments Clause. Litigation over presidential emoluments has a judicial precedent in Trump v. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. In that case, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the lower court's judgment and remanded the case with instructions "to dismiss the case as moot." The earlier case ended with that procedural instruction, without the Supreme Court's decision constituting a ruling that the dealings at issue were lawful.