J. Benjamin Greenberg, a Circle Internet Group Inc. shareholder, filed a derivative complaint Thursday in the US District Court for the District of Columbia. He targets President Donald Trump and World Liberty Financial, the crypto venture Trump co-founded with his sons, and seeks to recover damages on Circle's behalf.
Greenberg asserts that World Liberty directly challenges Circle in the stablecoin arena, and says this purportedly unlawful rivalry damaged him and other Circle shareholders. He further contends that Trump ran afoul of the Foreign Emoluments Clause via two UAE-linked deals: selling 49 percent of World Liberty for 500 million dollars to a vehicle financed by a member of the UAE's ruling family, and Abu Dhabi's MGX fund using World Liberty's stablecoin to finance a 2 billion dollar transaction. In his filing, he wrote, "This action is about the President of the United States corruptly profiting from more than $2 billion in payments from a foreign government in direct violation of the Constitution," adding, "No president in American history has profited from his office so brazenly."
The complaint asks the court to enjoin the president from any Foreign Emoluments Clause breaches, force disgorgement of unlawful gains, and grant unspecified damages.
Trump and his sons launched World Liberty several months ahead of the 2024 election. It offers two tokens - WLFI and the USD1 stablecoin - with CoinGecko pegging USD1's market value at roughly 4 billion dollars.
Last year, Abu Dhabi's MGX fund used USD1 to acquire a 2 billion dollar stake in Binance, described as the world's largest crypto exchange. Trump reported 1.4 billion dollars from his crypto-related activities, including World Liberty, last year. Democrats in Congress criticized that disclosure, and some have partly attributed the Clarity Act's failure - a bill meant to set market-structure rules for crypto - to it.
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"This lawsuit was filed by an individual shareholder, not by Circle," a company spokesperson said. "Circle did not initiate, direct, authorize, or participate in the filing." According to a World Liberty representative, the claims are "without merit." "World Liberty Financial is compliant with all US laws and regulations," David Wachsman said in a statement. "No one at World Liberty Financial works for the US government." The Justice Department did not promptly provide a comment in response to an inquiry. Officials from the Trump administration have said the president's crypto ventures do not pose conflicts.
World Liberty is also in a dispute with billionaire Justin Sun, who has alleged the company froze his WLFI tokens unlawfully and engaged in extortion. World Liberty has countersued him for defamation.
Emoluments Clause lawsuits brought during Trump's first term, which ended in 2021, did not recover money or force him to halt business practices alleged to be unconstitutional. This case, Greenberg v. Trump, 26-cv-03686, revisits similar issues while centering on stablecoins that intersect with real market activity.
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