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Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump uses ‘personal time' to meet with mysterious crypto investors
President Donald Trump spent 'personal time' with cryptocurrency investors at a dinner on Thursday, which his spokesperson described as not being 'a White House dinner.' During a press briefing earlier on Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked by Garrett Haake from NBC News about the dinner with the president. The dinner was held with 'the top 220 $TRUMP Meme Coin Holders,' according to an online registration page. Haake asked Leavitt if a list of attendees would be made available for the sake of transparency. 'The president is attending it in his personal time,' Leavitt replied. 'It is not a White House dinner. It's not taking place here at the White House.' Not discussed was the price of admission. Anonymous cryptocurrency buyers in attendance paid between $55,000 to $37.7 million, NBC News reported. The top 220 winners were invited to a black-tie optional dinner at Trump's golf club in Washington, D.C. 'FOR THE TOP 25 COIN HOLDERS, YOU are invited to an Exclusive Reception before Dinner with YOUR FAVORITE PRESIDENT!' the registration page read. In small text down the registration page, it stated that Trump was only to appear as a guest 'and is not soliciting any funds for [the dinner].' The event was organized by Fight Fight Fight LLC, one of two Trump-affiliated companies that owns 80% of the $TRUMP coin project, NBC News wrote. But the line about 'personal time' received criticism online. The Bulwark's Tim Miller said on X that 'personal time' is not something presidents have. 'There's not like a magic suit you wear when you are doing official business and one where you are just Donald from Queens,' Miller wrote in his post. Longtime Trump critic, lawyer George Conway, shared Miller's post on X and added his own commentary. 'Actually, it's fine,' Conway wrote. 'If Trump is saying he's doing something on his 'personal time,' then obviously that means he's not acting within what the Supreme Court calls 'the outer perimeter of his official responsibility,' which, in turn, means he's not immune from criminal prosecution.' Conway referred to last year's Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity. 'Oh (expletive) what an incredibly great point!' MeidasTouch's editor-in-chief, Ron Filipkowski, commented on Conway's post. 'Karoline Leavitt just took away his presidential immunity defense.' In The New Republic, Malcolm Ferguson wrote that one of Trump's top crypto spenders is called 'SUN,' which is held by a Seychelles-based crypto exchange known as HTX. 'The president is having a private dinner for anonymous foreigners who bought his cryptocurrency — a scam in and of itself — and is acting as if he's just taking a personal day that will have no impact on American politics," Ferguson wrote. A similar term was used during Trump's first term, called 'executive time,' Axios reported in 2019. This amounted 60% of his official schedule, spent watching television, reading papers and posting tweets (when X was known as Twitter). Most of 'executive time' was not spent in the Oval Office. 'Executive time' was a concept introduced to Trump by his former chief of staff, John Kelly, 'because the president hated being locked into a regular schedule,' Axios wrote. This private schedule could last as long as seven hours. Harvard foreign students feel like 'poker chips,' consider transfer after Trump attacks Federal judge blocks Trump admin from revoking Harvard enrollment of foreign students Got 'Trump Derangement Syndrome?' GOP lawmakers want the NIH to study an 'epidemic on the left' Trump threatens Apple with 25% tariff if it doesn't make iPhones in the US Trump Commerce boss gets put on blast with 'no pain' tariff claim Read the original article on MassLive.
Hindustan Times
23-05-2025
- Business
- Hindustan Times
Donald Trump's dinner for memecoin holders gets ‘shame, stop crypto corruption!' chants
President Donald Trump on Thursday hosted an exclusive dinner for hundreds of top investors of his 'memecoin' cryptocurrency at his golf club outside of Washington, with protesters yelling 'shame' at the guests. Trump flew in to attend the gala and meet the 220 biggest purchasers of his $TRUMP memecoin. Citing an event website, news agency AFP reported that the top 25 investors were to get a private session with Trump beforehand and a tour of the White House. The President had announced the launch of his crypto just three days before his inauguration in January, resulting in a quick surge in his net worth and prompting ethical questions at the same time. On Thursday, the White House dismissed any concerns over ethics and insisted that Trump was attending the dinner in his "personal time". Ahead of the exclusive gala for memecoin investors, Trump took to his Truth Social network and posted, "Heading to the Crypto Dinner in Loudon County, Virginia, in a little while. The U.S.A. is DOMINATING in Crypto, Bitcoin, etc., and we are going to keep it that way!" Meanwhile, around 100 protesters were heard screaming "Shame!" and "I hope you choke on your dinner!" within the range of the security checkpoint at Trump's golf club as guests arrived for the event. They also held up signs like "America is not for sale" and "Memecoin grifters go to jail" at the venue. The demonstrators were protesting against alleged crypto corruption. Some other signs also read "no kings" and "stop crypto corruption". Democrats decry memecoin investor dinner Democrats also criticised Trump's gala for his memecoin investors, describing it as an "orgy of corruption". Senator Elizabeth Warren slammed him for "using the presidency of the United States to make himself richer through crypto". Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, during an interview earlier this month, referred to the dinner and said, "In effect he is putting a 'For Sale' sign on the White House lawn." Holders of the Trump memecoin had to register on an online leaderboard to qualify for the dinner. The leaderboard tracked their average holdings over a period of three weeks. Following this, the top 220 holders of $TRUMP memecoin got invited, of which the top 25 were called for a special pre-dinner reception with the President. According to a Bloomberg report, memecoin's market cap reached nearly $15 billion soon after its launch in January. However, it has since taken a sharp dive to about $2.9 billion. The announcement of the dinner gala at Trump's golf club modestly boosted the memcoin's price. Fight Fight Fight LLC and CIC Digital LLC, an affiliate of The Trump, share 80 per cent of the memecoin's total supply. The Trump family has expanded its network of crypto businesses. Last year, Trump, along with his sons Donald Jr and Eric Trump, launched World Liberty Financial. The venture has raised more than $550 million.
Yahoo
22-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Senator has a shocking response to Trump's VIP dinner
On May 22, a public dinner marketed as "The Most Exclusive Once in a Lifetime Invitation" will allow the top 220 holders of the Trump-linked meme coin, TRUMP, to personally meet U.S. President Donald Trump. The VIP gala dinner, organized by Trump associate Bill Zanker, has drawn backlash for commodifying the political space and profiting from the crypto sector. Zanker, co-author of a book with Trump in 2007, has developed various products tied to Trump's brand, including NFTs, sneakers, and cologne. He has been notably instrumental in discreetly monetizing Trump's presence in the crypto market. According to Chainalysis, Zanker's company, Fight Fight Fight LLC, is responsible for the TRUMP meme coin, which has generated an estimated $300 million in fees for firms connected to Trump and Zanker. On Dec. 8, 2024, President Trump launched his perfume line on Truth Social with a picture of then-first lady Jill Biden, stating, "A fragrance your enemies can't resist!" Bloomberg now reports that Zanker is known to have been behind the fragrance and meme coin. The dinner invitation has raised the price of TRUMP and, subsequently, the value of tokens held by individuals linked to the president. At press time, TRUMP was trading at $14.64, reflecting a rise of 1,111.09% since its launch on January 19. The meme coin's page indicates that 80% of the tokens are allocated to CIC Digital LLC, a subsidiary of The Trump Organization. According to Bloomberg, that share is valued at over $2.1 billion. Critics, including ethics watchdogs and U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, contend this arrangement enables wealthy token holders to effectively "buy" access to the president, which raises significant conflict of interest concerns. This is primarily because some guests, including crypto billionaire Justin Sun, are under regulatory scrutiny from the U.S. government.
NBC News
21-05-2025
- Business
- NBC News
Trump's crypto dinner cost over $1 million per seat on average
More than 200 wealthy, mostly anonymous crypto buyers are coming to Washington on Thursday to have dinner with President Donald Trump. The price of admission: $55,000 to $37.7 million. That's how much the 220 winners of a contest to meet Trump spent on his volatile cryptocurrency token, $TRUMP, according to an analysis by the blockchain analytics company Nansen. The top $TRUMP coin holders at a specific time — determined by the dinner's organizers — secured a seat. In total, the winners spent $394 million on Trump's official cryptocurrency, Nansen found, though some have sold portions of or all of their holdings since the contest ended. The amount varied significantly by spender, with the top seven winners each spending more than $10 million and the bottom 24 each spending less than $100,000. A third of the winners — 67 of them — spent more than a million dollars, the research shows. The average winner spent $1,788,994.42. Like many meme coins, $TRUMP's value fluctuates wildly, according to CoinMarketCap, which tracks cryptocurrency prices. Nansen tracked how much each of the contest winners spent on their $TRUMP at the time they purchased it. The top 220 contest winners were invited to the black-tie optional dinner at the Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C. While the website for the contest claims that Trump 'is appearing at the dinner as a guest and not soliciting any funds for it,' it also says that 80% of the $TRUMP coin project is owned by two Trump-affiliated companies, CIC Digital and Fight Fight Fight LLC. The personal cryptocurrency and associated contest, which ended last Monday, adds to the litany of ways Trump has appeared to use the office of the presidency to profit personally. His business interests are in a trust controlled by his son Donald Trump Jr., and he has intertwined many of his family businesses with his activities as president, including holding events, like the crypto dinner, at his social clubs, and issuing exclusive political statements on his social media app Truth Social. Trump's cryptocurrency also makes money for the Trump-tied groups that created it simply by being traded. For every $TRUMP coin that's traded, a transaction fee is taken. Chainalysis, another cryptocurrency research firm, has estimated that the $TRUMP coin made nearly $900,000 in transaction fees within the first two days of the contest being announced. While most federal employees would be legally barred from using their office for financial gain, the president is largely exempt, Dan Weiner, the director of the Elections and Government Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told NBC News. 'The president is not subject to the broad prohibition on conflicts of interest that affects almost everyone else who works for the federal government,' Weiner said. 'In general this is pretty wild even by the standards of the first Trump administration, when you had a variety of people doing business at the president's hotels. This goes far beyond that, but that doesn't necessarily make it illegal for him,' he said. White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement: 'The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself. President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public — which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.' Even the winners at the bottom of the leaderboard spent far more than the legal limit for an American to donate directly to a political candidate, $3,500. The top spender revealed himself Tuesday as Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur who told Forbes in March he had become a citizen of the tiny island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis. Sun was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission, but that case has been paused under the Trump administration. The identities of most of the other contest winners are largely private, known only by their pseudonymous nicknames and cryptocurrency wallet addresses. However, a majority of the attendees appear to be foreign nationals, according to Molly White, an independent crypto researcher who has written about the contest. White examined each winning wallet's transactions as they crossed through different crypto exchanges, and noted when the holder appeared to use an exchange that does not legally allow U.S. citizens. Of the 220 wallets tied to contest winners, 158 of them, or 72%, appear foreign, White told NBC News. A New York Times investigation reported that the leaderboard included people representing crypto businesses in Singapore and Australia. The prevalence of non-U.S. citizens among the contest winners is notable, as it is generally illegal for people who are not U.S. citizens to donate to American political candidates, Weiner said. 'It's an incredible contrast. We have very strict laws that prohibit foreign nationals from making campaign donations. So the great irony here is that many of the people buying this currency would not be eligible to donate $100 to the president's campaign,' he said. 'We have a variety of laws that are designed to prevent undue foreign influence over our politics, something actually both parties agree is a legitimate thing to try to avoid. And yet you have this happening,' he said.
13-05-2025
- Business
Winners of Trump's meme coin contest potentially include foreign investors
The race to win tickets to an exclusive crypto dinner gala with President Donald Trump at his private golf club in Virginia on May 22 ended with top 220 holders of the Trump meme coin winning invitations to the black tie gala, the coin's official X account announced Monday. A " leaderboard" of the top 220 holders appearing on the website did not display the identities of the winners, but it listed numerous wallets that some crypto experts have linked to possible foreign individuals and entities, heightening concerns about potential conflicts of interest arising from the Trump family's businesses and foreign interests. According to the meme coin's website, the top 25 "VIP holders" were also invited to what it described as an "Exclusive Reception before Dinner" and a "Special VIP Tour." As the Trump family stands to potentially take in tens of millions of dollars from the coin's transactions and possibly even more from its ownership of the coin, the price of Trump's meme coin has been in constant fluctuation over the past three weeks, with numerous supporters and crypto enthusiasts flocking to purchase the coin to secure a seat at the gala while numerous others sell the coin to profit off the hype. The coin's price dropped rapidly on Monday as the competition ended, and was priced at $12.59 as of 4 p.m. ET. When the gala competition was first announced last year, the coin's price jumped by more than 55% and later reached a high of nearly $16.42, according to While fluctuations in the Trump coin's price have resulted in massive profits for a fortunate few, hundreds of thousands of investors have reportedly lost money on the coin. According to CNBC's reporting of blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis' data, roughly 764,000 crypto wallets have lost money on Trump meme coin investments, while 58 wallets have made millions from their Trump coin investments. Although the coin's website had earlier advertised a "Special VIP White House tour" for the top 25 coin holders, as of Monday afternoon it simply said "Special VIP tour," without mentioning the White House. Additionally, the website included a disclaimer saying the tour is being arranged by the Fight Fight Fight LLC, and that the president himself is appearing as a "guest." In its social media announcement about the conclusion of the contest, the post also announced a "rewards points program" and the awarding of "exclusive NFTs" for the winners. According to crypto experts, the wallet of the top coin holder -- nicknamed "Sun" and currently holding roughly $16.6 million worth of the Trump meme coin -- is owned by a foreign crypto exchange advised by Chinese billionaire Justin Sun, who recently moderated a panel discussion between Eric Trump and Zack Witkoff at a crypto conference in Dubai, where Witkoff announced the other Trump family crypto venture, World Liberty Financial, had partnered in a $2 billion business deal with an Abu Dahbi state-backed investment firm. Justin Sun did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News. Sun is also one of World Liberty Financials' biggest investors, purchasing $75 million worth of its coin the day before Trump's inauguration earlier this year. A month after that investment, SEC lawyers under the Trump administration moved to halt an alleged fraud case against Sun, who along with his companies has denied wrongdoing. The second top holder, a Singaporean entity identified by crypto experts as likely being MemeCore, and nicknamed "MeCo," has been more vocal about their race to secure a VIP ticket -- publicly soliciting followers to send Trump coin to their wallet so they can achieve "#1 on the $TRUMP leaderboard" and "conquer the entire meme space," with the promise of returning the tokens after the event. In all, the top 220 folders hold a total of 13.7 million Trump coins, valued at nearly $14 million as of 4 p.m. ET Monday, according to Notably, 17 out of the top 220 coin holders on the leaderboard, including one in the top 25, appeared to hold zero Trump coin as of Monday afternoon -- possibly meaning that they sold their holdings before the contest ended. Experts say this is possible because the top 220 holders were chosen based on "time weighted holdings," which were calculated based on "both the amount and duration" of one's holdings from April 23 through May 12. "The longer you hold, the higher your weighted score becomes," the website says. It's not clear if the zero Trump coin holders will get invited to the event.
