Reed & Kim Demand Public Disclosure of World Liberty Financials’ Beneficial Owners

WASHINGTON, DC – Who are the beneficial owners of World Liberty Financial (WLF) and who profits when investor cash is funneled to the firm?

It is a straightforward question and U.S. Senators Jack Reed (D-RI) and Andy Kim (D-NJ), two leading U.S. Senators on the Senate Banking Committee, say the American public deserves a straightforward answer.

In a move that could net the Trump family billions of dollars while dangerously blurring the line between presidential power and private profit, WLF, a cryptocurrency company founded and run by President Trump’s family in conjunction with Zach Witkoff, the son of Steve Witkoff, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, and business partners Zachary Folkman and Chase Herro, applied for a charter to become a national trust bank. The firm also has other stakeholders who have not been made public.

Now WLF is seeking federal approval to offer banking services tied to their digital token offerings. A national trust charter designation would allow WLF to offer custodial banking services to customers and to access national payment networks while under the supervision of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC).

Noting that applications for charters from the OCC are supposed to be public, Senators Reed and Kim sent a letter to the head of the OCC requesting the names of the ultimate beneficial owners of World Liberty Trust Company N.A. The senators say the public has a right to know who the beneficial owners are. The letter notes: “Public reporting in the Wall Street Journal on January 31 indicates that companies owned by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, specifically the National Security Advisor of the UAE, purchased 49% of World Liberty from the families of the President Trump and Steve Witkoff, the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, just days before the 2025 inauguration.”

The letter continues: “According to its application, World Liberty intends to issue a stablecoin called USD1 and manage the required reserves—in other words, to create representations of the U.S. dollar in digital form. If an entity that is ultimately 49% owned by a foreign political and military official will be given the privilege of creating and handling the American people’s money, then we hope you will agree that the public has a right to know that fact.

“Making this information public will not cause any loss of competitive position or invasion of privacy for World Liberty. These interests are substantially diminished by extensive public touting of its ties to the Trump and Witkoff families to generate a competitive edge—a marketing campaign that appears to have generated hundreds of millions in profits already,” the senators wrote.

Indeed, serious questions have already been raised about the Trump family’s quid pro quo type business dealings. For instance, media reports have noted that President Trump pardoned former Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao, who had been convicted of violating anti-money laundering laws, after Binance bought $2 billion of the stablecoin issued by World Liberty Financial and has been aggressively promoting the token to its customers. Binance allegedly holds 87% of the supply of USD1, an arrangement that nets the Trump and Witkoff families hundreds of millions of dollars each year. And under the Trump Administration, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) paused a federal investigation into a Chinese crypto entrepreneur after he bought $200 million worth of WLF crypto tokens.

Both WLF and the White House have insisted that the president plays no role in any company decision and reject concerns about conflicts of interest. All the more reason the company should disclose its beneficial owners and anchor investors.

Full text of the letter follows:

Dear Comptroller Gould:

We write to ask that you provide the names of the ultimate beneficial owners of World Liberty Trust Company N.A., a company with a pending application before your office to be a national trust company.

Applications for charters from the OCC are supposed to be public, with limited information entitled to confidential treatment. But the public volume of the application does not include any information about the ultimate beneficial owners of World Liberty Trust Company. The only information disclosed is that World Liberty Trust Company is 100% owned by an entity called WLTC Holdings, LLC. The full “upper tier” organizational chart of World Liberty Trust Company and a capitalization table for WLTC Holdings have been kept confidential. Public reporting in the Wall Street Journal on January 31 indicates that companies owned by a member of the Abu Dhabi royal family, specifically the National Security Advisor of the UAE, purchased 49% of World Liberty from the families of the President Trump and Steve Witkoff, the President’s Special Envoy to the Middle East, just days before the 2025 inauguration.

There is tremendous public interest in information regarding the ownership of World Liberty given the reporting referenced above. According to its application, World Liberty intends to issue a stablecoin called USD1 and manage the required reserves—in other words, to create representations of the U.S. dollar in digital form. If an entity that is ultimately 49% owned by a foreign political and military official will be given the privilege of creating and handling the American people’s money, then we hope you will agree that the public has a right to know that fact.

Making this information public will not cause any loss of competitive position or invasion of privacy for World Liberty. These interests are substantially diminished by extensive public touting of its ties to the Trump and Witkoff families to generate a competitive edge—a marketing campaign that appears to have generated hundreds of millions in profits already.

Thank you for your attention to this important matter.

Sincerely,