Donald Trump: Sued by a Circle Shareholder Over $2.5B in UAE Crypto Deals

On Thursday 22 October 2026 a software engineer from Jefferson County, Colorado, filed a 70-page lawsuit against the President of the United States in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. J. Benjamin Greenberg worked at Circle, the company behind the USDC digital dollar, from 2016 to 2018, and still owns 10,000 of its shares. He is suing in Circle's name. Circle says it never asked him to.

The case, Greenberg v. Trump, No. 1:26-cv-03686, claims that Donald Trump broke the Constitution's ban on taking payments from foreign governments through two deals, worth $2.5 billion between them, with World Liberty Financial, the crypto company that Trump, his three sons and the Witkoff family co-founded in September 2024. In the first, a vehicle backed by Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), agreed to buy 49% of World Liberty for $500 million. In the second, MGX, an Abu Dhabi investment company that Tahnoon chairs, paid for a $2 billion stake in Binance, the world's largest crypto exchange, with World Liberty's own digital dollar. "No president in American history has profited from his office so brazenly," the complaint says. These are one shareholder's allegations. No court has ruled on them.

The defendants are Trump and Steve Witkoff, the US special envoy to the Middle East and a World Liberty co-founder, both sued in their official roles, plus World Liberty and four holding companies. Two of them, DT Marks DEFI and DT Marks SC, hold the Trump family's 38.25% share of the business, the complaint says. Circle Internet Group is a "nominal defendant", a formality: no claim is made against it.

The rule the lawsuit relies on

The Foreign Emoluments Clause, in Article I of the Constitution, says that no federal officeholder shall, "without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State." An emolument is an old word for a profit, fee or payment. In Alexander Hamilton's words, republics offer "too easy an inlet to foreign corruption." Only Congress can approve an exception. The complaint says it has not, and that Trump has not asked.

The case depends on whether the money came from a "foreign State". The complaint says Aryam, the vehicle that bought the 49%, is controlled by Tahnoon in his role as a senior official, and that MGX is an arm of the Abu Dhabi government, set up in March 2024 by a government council with the state investor Mubadala and the AI company G42, which Tahnoon also chairs. Tahnoon, a brother of the UAE's president, is not a defendant.

Deal one: 49% of World Liberty for $500 million

In early December 2024 Witkoff, already chosen as Trump's envoy, went to the UAE for a crypto conference with Eric Trump and met Tahnoon, the complaint says. About a week later two companies named Aryam Investment 1 were registered, in Delaware and in Abu Dhabi. On 16 January 2025, four days before the inauguration, Aryam agreed to buy 49% of World Liberty for $500 million. Half was paid up front, and $187 million of it went to the two DT Marks companies. The Wall Street Journal revealed the deal on 31 January 2026, reporting that Eric Trump signed it and that at least $31 million went to companies tied to the Witkoff family. Two G42 executives, Peng Xiao and Martin Edelman, joined World Liberty's board.

In stock-market terms: a vehicle backed by a foreign government's security chief bought just under half of a private company majority-owned by the incoming president's family, and the public did not learn of it for a year. The timing is the centre of the claim. The second $250 million was due by 15 July 2025, after Trump took office. His 2025 financial disclosure reports $262.5 million paid to the DT Marks companies from selling stakes in WLF Holdco and Stablecoin Holdco; the complaint says the $75.5 million above the first payment came from Aryam's second instalment, while he was President.

On 18 March 2025, with half the price unpaid, Trump received Tahnoon at the White House. At the dinner that followed, the complaint says, Tahnoon sat beside Witkoff.

Deal two: $2 billion in the family's digital dollar

A stablecoin is a digital token designed to be worth exactly one dollar, backed by cash and short-term US government debt. Buyers hand over dollars and receive tokens. The issuer invests the dollars and keeps the interest, much as a bank profits from current accounts that pay customers nothing. Circle's USDC, launched in 2018, had $73.3 billion in circulation on 30 June 2026, according to the complaint. World Liberty announced its own, USD1, on 25 March 2025.

Thirteen days earlier MGX had announced a $2 billion investment in Binance, to be paid in a stablecoin it did not name. On 1 May 2025 Zach Witkoff, Steve Witkoff's son and now World Liberty's chief executive, told a conference in Dubai that USD1 had been chosen to close the deal. MGX bought $2 billion of USD1 from World Liberty with cash and passed the tokens to Binance. By February 2026 Binance held about 87% of all USD1, the complaint says.

For the issuer, $2 billion of tokens that nobody cashes in works like a $2 billion deposit earning interest. The complaint puts World Liberty's income from it at about $80 million a year, and says Trump's 2025 disclosure reports $8.3 million of net operating income from the stablecoin business.

This is where Circle comes in. About 96% of its 2025 revenue came from interest on the reserves behind USDC, and in December 2024 Binance had agreed to adopt USDC for its own treasury. The complaint, citing the Wall Street Journal, says Binance asked MGX to pay in USD1 instead; Binance's lawyer told the Journal that Binance "did not control the stablecoin chosen by MGX." At Circle's interest rates, the complaint says, $2 billion of USDC would have earned it $70 million to $82 million a year. With foreign governments paying into World Liberty to win the President's favour, it argues, "Circle is left unable to compete."

It also lists decisions it says followed the payments: approvals for advanced AI chips to go to the UAE, Trump's October 2025 pardon of Binance's founder Changpeng Zhao, and preliminary approval of a national trust bank for World Liberty in August 2026.

Why a shareholder, and not Circle

Greenberg filed a derivative suit: a shareholder sues on the company's behalf when he says its board will not, and anything recovered goes to the company, not to him. He did not ask Circle's seven directors first, arguing that they cannot act independently of the President: Circle will be regulated under the GENIUS Act, which Trump signed; it gave $1 million in USDC to his inaugural committee; and in September 2026 Binance bought about $100 million of Circle shares.

He asks the court to declare the payments unconstitutional, to bar Trump from accepting more of them without the approval of Congress, to bar Witkoff from seeking them for him, to order an accounting of every foreign-government payment linked to World Liberty, and to make the companies hand over what they received "to the United States Treasury or as the Court directs". Damages are sought only from the World Liberty companies, since, as the complaint notes, they are not available against a President sued in his official role. He wants a jury. His lawyers are from Evergreen Legal Strategies in Washington.

What the White House, World Liberty and Circle say

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly called the lawsuit "frivolous" and said: "There are no conflicts of interest." World Liberty spokesman David Wachsman said the claims "are without merit, and we look forward to resolving them in court," adding that "World Liberty Financial is compliant with all U.S. laws and regulations" and that "No one at World Liberty Financial works for the U.S. Government." In January both World Liberty and the White House told the Journal that Trump was not involved in the Aryam deal and that it did not influence policy.

Circle kept its distance. "This lawsuit was filed by an individual shareholder, not by Circle," a spokesperson said. "Circle did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing." Witkoff had made no public comment by 23 October, and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to Bloomberg.