Latest news with #FreightTechnologies
Gizmodo
23-05-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Trump Spent 20 Minutes at Crypto Dinner With People Who Paid $148 Million to Be There
They wanted to be in the room where it happens (and the "it" is corruption). Last night, Donald Trump hosted 220 of the biggest suckers you know for dinner. As part of a promotion for his cryptocurrency memecoin $TRUMP, the President of the United States let the top bag holders of his coin come hang out, including offering a private VIP reception with the 25 biggest 'investors.' According to the Wall Street Journal, the 220 who received invites spent a cumulative $148 million buying up $TRUMP before the event. The event, which was held at the Trump National Golf Club Washington DC in Potomac Falls, Virginia, was a real who's who of people who make you go 'I think I've heard of that person.' Perhaps the most famous person in the room was former NBA player Lamar Odom, who is now promoting his own memecoin. Others at the dinner included Brendan McCafferty, a guy CNN rather savagely called a 'self-described media executive,' and Jeffrey Zirlin of the failed Axie Infinity game that got hacked for $600 million. The Wall Street Journal noted that many of the attendees were foreigners, many of whom are big players in the crypto space. Others were looking to influence American policy—like Javier Selgas, the CEO of shipping company Freight Technologies, who made headlines by announcing plans to buy up $TRUMP to get a seat next to the president and try to advocate for easing tariffs. The biggest mark of the night, though, was Justin Sun, a Chinese-born crypto mogul who has made himself a bit of a central figure in the Trump crypto cinematic universe. Sun faced charges from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for allegedly manipulating the price of his cryptocurrency $TRON. Earlier this year, Sun purchased $75 million worth of tokens from World Liberty Financial, the 'decentralized finance protocol' run by Trump's kids, and found his charges dropped. Sun was identified as the top holder of $TRUMP at the dinner event, holding about $18 million worth of the memecoin, and was awarded a 'Trump Golden Tourbillion' watch, according to CNN. By all accounts, the attendees did not get their money's worth out of the event. YouTuber CoffeeZilla, an investigative journalist in the crypto space, said he was told by attendees that the event was disappointing and 'wack.' Christoph Heuermann, a 'serial entrepreneur' who attended the event, said in an Instagram post that Trump gave a 20-minute speech and 'didn't interact with the crowd other than enjoying being celebrated. Even VIP token holders (I know some) couldn't speak or even shake hands with the president.' Don't worry, though: If you thought that was meant as a criticism of the whole charade, it wasn't. 'It was still well worth it to experience the president live and watch his mightily secured arrival and departure,' Heuermann wrote. Trump's short speech—which he made in front of the official presidential seal despite the White House claiming it was a 'private' event—seemed to be a classic rambling 'weave' of an address, recounting his 2024 presidential election victory and bragging about closing the southern border in between the occasion bit of red meat tossed to the crypto crowd, according to CNN. 'The Biden administration persecuted crypto innovators, and we're bringing them back into the USA where they belong,' he told the audience, per Fox News. As Trump welcomed the folks who are actively lining his pockets, protesters stood outside the gates of the Trump National Golf Club, denouncing the event as evidence of corruption and demanding the full guest list be released, according to the New York Times. Democrats have launched several efforts to force the President (and other politicians) to divest from cryptocurrency so they cannot use their office to profit through promotions like this. But until one of those bills actually goes somewhere, it seems like there are still plenty of people out there willing to give Trump money in exchange for little more than clout (and maybe a pardon down the line, if needed).
CBS News
22-05-2025
- Business
- CBS News
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. 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.
Gizmodo
06-05-2025
- Business
- Gizmodo
Freight Company Tells SEC It Needs Millions in $TRUMP to Get Access to the President
The transactional nature of the Trump presidency, now on the blockchain. Donald Trump has promised to have dinner with the top holders of his cryptocurrency memecoin $TRUMP, creating a pretty clear-cut opportunity for buying access to the leader of the free world. Freight Technologies Inc., a North American-based shipping company, wants to take advantage. The firm's CEO Javier Selgas recently announced—publicly, on purpose, with zero consequence—that it intends to purchase as much as $20 million worth of $TRUMP so that he can try to influence the president's policies on tariffs. According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made by the company, it has tapped an institutional investor to provide financing for an initial purchase of $1 million worth of $TRUMP, with the possibility of an additional $19 million. Basically, it's borrowing up to $20 million to get a seat at the table with Trump. The company isn't shy about that goal, either. In a press release, Selgas said the purchase is part of the company's 'promotion of productive and active commerce between the United States and Mexico.' The Trump Coin team recently announced that the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token would be invited to participate in a private dinner with Trump on May 22, with a VIP reception and tour for the top 25 holders—a prospect that immediately set off alarm bells for any reasonable person who believes that you shouldn't be able to get a trip to the White House for lining the pockets of the president. It wasn't hard to imagine that someone—a CEO, crypto insider, foreign actor—would buy up some $TRUMP in order to get a seat at the table with him for a night. It probably was a little less expected for a company to issue a press release about enacting that strategy. Per the leaderboard on the Trump Coin website, the $1 million investment should be enough to get Selgas and Freight Technologies in the door for dinner. The current top holder of $TRUMP is Justin Sun, the founder of crypto platform TRON, which was investigated by the SEC for allegedly manipulating the price of the cryptocurrency. He holds approximately $1.2 million worth of $TRUMP, and is one of only two people who currently have more than $400,000 worth of the token. Trump, for his part, is acting like he doesn't know anything. During an appearance on NBC News' Meet the Press over the weekend, Trump said 'I haven't even looked' when asked if he had profited off his cryptocurrency, which launched shortly before he took office for the second time. 'If I own stock in something, and I do a good job, and the market goes up, I guess I'm profiting,' he said, which is a pretty good encapsulation of just how deep his understanding of the crypto space. He doesn't have to look to profit, of course. Around 80% of all $TRUMP coins are owned by two entities: CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump organization, and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which is co-owned by CIC Digital. So the vast majority of the tokens are already in Trump's pockets. When people buy the token, like, for instance, when there is an announcement that holding the coin could get you a private dinner with the president, the price goes up, and so does the value of Trump company holdings. They also 'receive trading revenue derived from trading activities,' per the Trump Coin site, so they're cashing in on each transaction, too. Trump has always been a transactional person. Now it just happens to be logged to the blockchain.
Business Times
04-05-2025
- Business
- Business Times
Tiny logistics firm's shares surge on plan to buy Trump Coin
[NEW YORK] A small logistics company's plan to hold US President Donald Trump's memecoin as a treasury asset is fuelling its blistering stock rally. Freight Technologies said it will use proceeds from the sale of convertible notes to buy the Trump digital token. The company intends to start with a US$1 million offering, and may raise up to US$20 million. The penny stock more than doubled on Friday (May 2), giving it a US$4.7 million market value. The move followed a more than 20 per cent swing up and then back down in the two trading sessions after Wednesday's morning announcement. The Houston-based company said in a press release that it is one of the first public companies to make the Trump coin 'a cornerstone of its digital asset strategy'. The purchase came after Freight Technologies acquired FET tokens from a decentralised artificial intelligence platform. As at Apr 29, the company said it holds about US$8 million worth of FET. Freight Technologies and other companies are following in the footsteps of Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy, which has turned to the sale of convertible debt and other securities to fund the purchase of Bitcoin worth more than US$50 billion. Investors have been driving up the shares of companies that scoop up cryptoassets. Upexi shares have climbed more than 500 per cent since the company announced a plan to raise US$100 million to buy the Solana token, while blank-check company Cantor Equity Partners has more than quadrupled on plans to become a Bitcoin-investment vehicle. Such amplified moves are not uncommon in companies with low floats and harken back to the stock swings of the meme-stock era during the pandemic. The Trump coin, however, is far less established than the cryptocurrencies other firms have targeted – it debuted several days before the president's inauguration and has since lost much of its value. The president's memecoin has also prompted an uproar among critics over potential conflicts of interest and ethics violations. Democratic senators Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts said last month that a planned private dinner for top holders of the coin may constitute 'pay to play' corruption, and are calling for an ethics investigation. Freight Technologies' chief executive Javier Selgas said in the release that purchasing the coin was a way to 'advocate for fair, balanced, and free trade between Mexico and the US'. BLOOMBERG
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Company Boasts Spending Up To $20 Million On Trump Crypto Coin To Buy Influence
WASHINGTON — An international trucking logistics firm is buying as much as $20 million worth of President Donald Trump's crypto coins to influence the administration's trade policy — the precise sort of quid-pro-quo arrangement that corruption experts warned Trump was encouraging when he unveiled his venture. Freight Technologies Inc. CEO Javier Selgas said in a Wednesday news release that buying Trump coin would be 'an effective way to advocate for fair, balanced and free trade between Mexico and the U.S.' The release was attached to a filing that same day with the Securities and Exchange Commission explaining why Freight Technologies was issuing bonds. 'The company will use the net proceeds from the offering to purchase TRUMP coins,' the company told the SEC. 'It's just another day for Donald Trump that an international freight company is paying a $20 million tribute towards the Trump family fortune after openly wishing it will lead to administration tariff relief,' said Tony Carrk, executive director of The watchdog group discovered Freight Technologies' plan through a social media post bragging about it by the company that sells the Trump coins. Neither Freight Technologies, which is incorporated in the British Virgin Islands but has a U.S. headquarters in Houston, nor Selgas responded to HuffPost queries. Trump White House officials also did not respond to HuffPost for this story, nor did On April 23, announced that it was holding a contest to reward the top 220 holders of Trump coins with a dinner with the president at his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, on May 22. The top 25 coinholders would get an 'exclusive' reception with him as well. 'Any company can seek to curry favor with Trump and flavor that curry with cash,' said Norm Eisen, the top ethics lawyer in the Obama White House. 'He's opened up an additional channel of illicit influence by hosting this dinner.' Going back to his first term, Trump used his office to enrich himself — a textbook definition of corruption — more than any previous president going back at least a century. He operated a hotel blocks from the White House where both domestic and foreign lobbyists met with administration officials while spending at the bar and restaurant. Foreign delegations frequently took rooms there, sometimes blocks of rooms, for days and weeks at a time. Republican Party groups and candidates held events at his properties, particularly the Washington, D.C., hotel and Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private club in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump even tried to host a G7 summit of the world's largest democratic economies at his cash-strapped golf resort in Doral, Florida, until critical press coverage made him back down. All of those efforts, though, pale in comparison to Trump's eager promotion of his crypto schemes in his second term. Three days before his inauguration, he announced his Trump coin, which immediately soared to nearly $75 per coin before crashing back down. It had fallen as low as $7.57 last month before announced the dinner and reception contest. The price on Friday stood at $12.97. Crypto coins have zero intrinsic value and do not physically exist anywhere. Even the site states: 'Trump Memes are intended to function as an expression of support for, and engagement with, the ideals and beliefs embodied by the symbol '$TRUMP,'' and they are 'not intended to be, or to be the subject of, an investment opportunity, investment contract, or security of any type.' Ethics experts warned that Trump's coins would enable foreign and domestic interests seeking the president's favor to funnel him cash without leaving a public trace. Indeed, thus far, Freight Technologies appears to be the only company or individual making a large dollar purchase of Trump coins to announce it publicly. Crypto transactions are difficult to trace, which has made them a favorite for money launderers and other criminals since their invention. posts a 'leader board' of the top Trump coin owners, but only provides their user names and crypto 'wallets.' If Freight Technologies goes through with its plan to buy $20 million of Trump coins at Friday's $12.97 price, it would have 1,542,020 Trump coins, putting the company in the top spot on the rankings and likely giving its representative face time with Trump at the 'VIP' reception prior to the May 22 dinner. Freight Technologies facilitates movements of goods back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border by long-haul trucking — a business facing considerable financial threat from Trump's trade war. 'At the heart of Fr8Tech's mission is the promotion of productive and active commerce between the United States and Mexico. Mexico is the United States' top goods trading partner, with Mexico being the leading destination for US exports and the top source for US imports,' Selgas wrote in the April 30 release. 'There's little doubt this company is expecting some administration policy relief in return for their generous investment in the growing Trump crypto empire,' Carrk said. 'It's an indictment in and of itself that the president has paved the way for so much potential corruption for his own personal gain and at the public expense that few can keep up.' Ty Cobb, a former federal prosecutor who served in Trump's first-term White House, said that while federal law makes either offering or accepting a bribe a crime, Trump has made it plain that won't be enforced so long as he is in the White House. 'They've made it clear that there are no ethics and they're not beholden to any standards, and it doesn't matter if it's illegal or not because they're not going to prosecute Republicans, so get over it,' Cobb said. 'What passes for routine at this White House is purely corrupt.'
