As Trump hosts crypto gala, experts continue to raise conflict of interest concerns
When President Trump's new tariffs started throttling freight traffic, the leader of trucking logistics firm Freight Technologies used an unorthodox method to try and get the president's attention.
The California-based firm purchased $2 million worth of Trump Coin, the signature cryptocurrency backed by Mr. Trump. The president and his family launched Trump Coin days before he took office in January. Anyone can buy the cryptocurrency. An analytics firm says Mr. Trump's family and other backers have collected more than $300 million in transaction fees so far.
Donald Quinby, Freight Technologies' chief financial officer, told CBS News that the purchase seemed like "really the best platform for us to make a splash, to make some noise."
"With the Trump meme token, this was just an opportunity to really advocate for free and fair trade," Quinby said. "I'm sure he likes to follow who's purchasing his coins."
In April, the Trump family announced an "intimate private dinner" with the president at Mr. Trump's golf course in Virginia to reward the biggest buyers of Trump Coin, or $TRUMP. A leaderboard was created so buyers could compete with one another. Buyers eventually spent $140 million trying to secure access to the event, according to data analytics firm Inca Digital.
A message on the $TRUMP leaderboard.
trumpdinner.gettrumpmemes.com
Some of the 220 leading buyers of $TRUMP received tickets to attend the dinner. Mr. Trump will also host a smaller reception for the token's top 25 holders. The guests are beneficiaries of a new opportunity to gain access and potential influence in a city with a long history of blending money and politics, experts said.
"This is really unprecedented," said Jessica Tillipman, a George Washington University law professor. "This appears to be a president that could be potentially benefiting privately from something that he's doing out in the open."
The White House pushed back hard on the notion that the gala dinner or the president's role in promoting the cryptocurrency crossed any ethical lines. Administration officials said they had not approved an initial plan suggesting top buyers of the meme coin product would receive a White House tour.
"This is a personal dinner that the president is attending on his personal time," a White House official told CBS News in a statement. "The White House has absolutely nothing to do with it."
Trump rewards cryptocurrency buyers
Meme coins are a type of cryptocurrency whose value is largely driven by social media buzz. They are not usually used in transactions, and are known for erratic price shifts. $TRUMP peaked at around $75 shortly after launch and plummeted to under $8 by April 2025, but soared in value after the dinner with Mr. Trump was announced.
Among the attendees of Thursday's dinner is Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto billionaire and the largest holder of Trump Coin. Sun has a net worth of $8.5 billion, according to Forbes, and is best known for creating the Tron blockchain. He was also the buyer who paid $6.2 million for a banana duct-taped to a wall by artist Maurizio Cattelan. Sun promptly ate the fruit.
Sun was sued for fraud by the Biden administration for allegedly "fraudulently manipulating the secondary market" and paying celebrities to promote a crypto token his company created "without disclosing their compensation." Earlier this year, the Securities and Exchange Commission paused the lawsuit as part of a broader Trump administration shift toward easing crypto enforcement.
Justin Sun, founder of TRON, speaks at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore, on Thursday, Sept. 29, 2022. The event started with invitation only sessions on Sept. 28, runs through September 30. Photographer: Bryan van der Beek/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Bloomberg
Sun also said his firm has invested tens of millions in the Trump-linked World Liberty Financial. But the anonymous nature of cryptocurrency allows Sun, and other foreign buyers like him, to court access to power with little transparency.
"It's almost like the perfect kind of opaque structure for any type of foreign government or, you know, non-U.S. citizens who wanted to try to seek favor, curry favor with this particular administration," Tillipman said.
Experts raise concerns about conflicts of interest
Tillipman compared the Trump family's foray into cryptocurrency to Hunter Biden's art sales during his father's administration.
"The argument was that [purchasers of Hunter Biden's artwork] could use it to influence" then-President Joe Biden, she said.
Like cryptocurrency, "a lot of these types of transactions are by nature opaque because you don't know who's purchasing it. You don't know who the buyer is," Tillipman said. She noted that in effect, the Biden administration tried to distance the president from the transactions by saying information about the buyers and transactions would be kept secret by the gallery owner.
Nonetheless, she said "there were a lot of legitimate concerns associated with that particular dealing, as there was fear that it could be a back door to President Biden" through a family member.
"The difference here is just the order of magnitude and the involvement of the president himself," Tillipman said. Hunter Biden's art netted him about $1.5 million by the end of his father's presidency, compared to the potentially far more lucrative Trump family crypto business.
Mr. Trump has previously vowed on social media to "make sure the U.S. is the Crypto Capital of the World." He and his eldest sons are also backing the crypto exchange World Liberty Financial, and cryptocurrency makes up about $2.9 billion of Mr. Trump's net worth, according to a recent report.
On Monday, the Senate advanced the GENIUS Act, which would regulate stablecoins, a type of cryptocurrency that is linked to the value of an asset like the U.S. dollar or gold. They tend to have fewer price fluctuations than meme coins, but allow for the same opacity in transactions. Some Democrats pushed back against the bill, citing Mr. Trump's crypto holdings and calling for anti-corruption rules.
"This is corruption out in the open," said Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, the top Democrat on the Senate Banking Committee, on Thursday. "The GENIUS Act will supercharge Donald Trump's ability to collect money from anybody who is seeking pardon, who wants tariff relief, who wants a criminal prosecution dropped."
The White House has dismissed criticisms that Mr. Trump's support for the crypto sector represents a conflict of interest.
"All of the president's assets are in a blind trust, which is managed by his children, and I would argue, one of the many reasons that the American people reelected this president back to this office is because he was a very successful businessman before giving it up to publicly serve our country," press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a briefing Thursday.
Quinby found that buying the meme coin didn't immediately result in access to the president. Freight Technologies didn't make it to the leaderboard, but they are prepared to keep spending. The trucking company reported in public securities filings that their investment in $TRUMP could eventually reach $20 million, if that's what it takes to get Mr. Trump's attention. Even if they lose money on the market, Quinby thinks it was worth the risk.
"We thought the ability for us to get out there and advocate for the fair and free trade, we thought it was worth it," Quinby said.
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