Connections & Associates

An Abu Dhabi-backed sovereign technology fund that deployed $2 billion worth of the Trump-linked USD1 stablecoin in a transaction with crypto exchange Binance. The deal drew significant scrutiny from US Democratic lawmakers who called it deeply unusual.

The Saudi government's primary investment vehicle. It committed $2 billion to Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners shortly after the first Trump term. In January 2026 the Trump family office announced a $7 billion real estate and hospitality project in Diriyah, Saudi Arabia.

Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan is the UAE's national security advisor and a brother of the UAE's president, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed. He controls an extensive network of sovereign and private investment vehicles and is one of the most powerful figures in UAE economic policy. An investment vehicle he controls, Aryam Investment 1, purchased a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million in January 2025 -- just days before Trump's second inauguration on January 20, 2025. The transaction was not publicly disclosed by WLFI at the time and was only reported after investigative journalism surfaced the deal. The transaction placed a UAE national security official as a near-majority investor in a cryptocurrency platform majority-controlled by the incoming US president and his family. Ethics experts and congressional Democrats described the arrangement as an unprecedented conflict of interest, with direct financial flows from a foreign government to the president-elect on the eve of his return to power. The Trump administration and WLFI disputed the characterisation, describing it as an arm's-length commercial investment. Sheikh Tahnoon also oversees a broader portfolio of UAE sovereign and semi-sovereign investment vehicles with interests across technology, artificial intelligence, and financial services globally.

In January 2026 the Pakistani government signed a formal agreement with World Liberty Financial to incorporate cryptocurrency into its national financial system. The agreement was negotiated by Zach Witkoff with Pakistan's finance minister.