Abu Dhabi Royal Tahnoon Backs 49% Stake in Trump Crypto Bank Venture

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser and chairman of AI firm G42, is reportedly the principal backer of a 49% stake in the holding company behind World Liberty Financial's proposed US trust bank. According to the Wall Street Journal, Tahnoon's investment group controls StringZ Holding RSC, which owns 49% of WLTC Holdings. A separate entity tied to President Donald Trump's family holds an additional 38% stake in the holding company, sources familiar with the matter told WSJ.

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency granted World Liberty Trust Company preliminary conditional approval on Aug. 14, with published records confirming StringZ as an investor in WLTC Holdings. StringZ has signed commitments pledging not to influence the bank's operations, though OCC filings do not identify Tahnoon as the backer or disclose his stake. If fully approved, the federally supervised trust bank would oversee the issuance, redemption, and custody of World Liberty's USD1 stablecoin. The bank cannot begin operating until it satisfies all OCC pre-opening requirements.

Tahnoon previously backed a $500 million purchase of 49% of World Liberty Financial itself, a transaction that drew scrutiny from Democratic senators who called for congressional hearings into whether the deal influenced US policy toward the UAE. The reported investment comes amid broader US-UAI cooperation on artificial intelligence: Washington authorized exports of advanced AI chips to G42 in November 2025, following a bilateral AI cooperation framework agreed earlier that year. The Cointelegraph report highlights growing intersections between crypto ventures, Gulf sovereign capital, and US political figures, raising fresh regulatory and conflict-of-interest questions as stablecoin issuers increasingly seek federal banking charters.