Thursday night at the Trump National Golf Club the president of the United States will host a gala dinner for the top 220 investors in his cryptocurrency meme coin, “$TRUMP.” The self proclaimed “most exclusive invitation in the world,” also gives the top 25 $TRUMP holders a private reception with the president and a special VIP tour of the White House.
The event has, unsurprisingly, raised giant red flags from ethics watchdogs. Watchdog group Accountable.US described the event as “seeing corruption unfold in real-time,” and Norm Eisen, the Obama administration special counsel for ethics and government reform, dubbed the dinner, “an ethics nightmare.” As troubling as the unprecedented ethical questions surrounding the event — and Trump’s crypto ties more generally — may be, there is, perhaps, an even graver question: is Trump auctioning off U.S. foreign policy for personal gain? Unfortunately, the answer to that question appears to be a resounding “yes.”
For starters, a Bloomberg analysis found that 19 of the 25 top Trump meme coin holders are foreigners who have now purchased direct access to the president. “It’s kind of naive to believe that they aren’t gonna be in that room talking about national security matters,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) during a recent hearing that mentioned the Trump gala. To Murphy’s point, at least one of these foreign nationals that bought their way into Trump’s inner-circle was, just months ago, in the cross-hairs of U.S. law enforcement.
On Monday, Chinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun confirmed on X that he was the top holder of $TRUMP coin and was excited to attend the gala, “to connect with everyone, talk crypto, and discuss the future of our industry.”
Sun is estimated to hold $18.6 million of the meme coin and has also invested $75 million in World Liberty Financial, a newly formed crypto company that gives 75% of its revenue to the Trump family. In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Sun with fraud and other securities law violations. In February 2025, just days after Trump took office and just two months after Sun began investing millions in World Liberty Financial, the SEC under Trump called for a halt to Sun’s prosecution.
Sun’s case may have sent a signal to other foreign interests with pressing issues before the president. Earlier this week, for example, the Guardian reported that, “a small technology company called GD Culture group that has a Chinese subsidiary company and has a TikTok e-commerce business announced that it had secured $300m in funding to buy up $TRUMP coins. Its purchase would coincide with Trump deciding how to handle TikTok’s potential ban or forced sale within the US.”
Foreign governments have also turned to directly influencing the president through crypto. In late April, World Liberty Financial announced that the firm’s digital coin would be used by MGX, a United Arab Emirates (UAE) government backed firm, to invest $2 billion into Binance, a crypto exchange. As the New York Times reported, “[t]hose funds alone could generate tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue for the Trump family and its partners at World Liberty.” Just two weeks later, when Trump visited the UAE on his first state trip abroad as president, he signed a deal that would allow the UAE to buy 500,000 Nvidia artificial intelligence chips, raising questions as to whether Trump was selling off America’s tech advantage or directly endangering U.S. national security, particularly given Nvidia’s growing collaboration with the U.S. military and other parts of the government.
Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has also been a vocal opponent of the president’s crypto ties.“Currently, people who wish to cultivate influence with the president can enrich him personally by buying cryptocurrency he owns or controls,” Merkley said. “This is a profoundly corrupt scheme. It endangers our national security and erodes public trust in government.”
But it’s not just Democrats expressing concerns. Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska told NBC News, “I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to charge people to come into the Capitol and take a tour.” Sen. Cynthia Lewis (R-Wyo.), a staunch Trump supporter, said the Trump meme coin dinner “gives me pause.”
Despite the bipartisan backlash, Trump likely moved forward with the dinner because of the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing to the president and his family. $TRUMP meme coin holders spent an estimated $148 million to join the gala, and business entities behind the $TRUMP coin have also made nearly $100 million just in transaction fees, as the president has repeatedly marketed the coin, according to a Reuters analysis.
Even that is just the tip of the iceberg of how much Trump, his family, and his companies have made in the crypto space. According to CNBC, roughly 80% of the Trump meme coin is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, and as of mid-May had a market value around $2.65 billion. In total, Trump’s crypto holdings are estimated to be worth roughly $2.9 billion, or around 37% of his net worth.
The price for all of this will likely be a U.S. foreign policy that reflects Trump’s personal financial interests as much as, if not more than, the interests of the American people. U.S. foreign policy has long been up for auction but now, for the first time, that auction appears to have its own currency: $TRUMP.
