
How Trump family took over World Liberty Financial as it raised hundreds of millions
World Liberty Financial raised more than half a billion dollars, President Donald Trump's family took control of the crypto venture and grabbed the lion's share of those funds, aided by governance terms that industry experts say favor insiders. Launched last fall, World Liberty's goal is to allow people to access financial services using cryptocurrencies and without intermediaries like banks in what is called decentralized finance, or DeFi.
But it has yet to launch a public platform and has reported only a small staff, a review of the project shows. Even so, World Liberty said in mid-March it had raised $550 million selling so-called governance tokens.
Most of those sales took place after Trump's election win in November, Reuters calculations show.
The tokens, which go by the symbol $WLFI, give holders the right to vote on changes to the project's underlying code and to signal their opinion on its direction and plans. They cannot be traded.
As its fundraising got traction, World Liberty disclosed in January that the Trump family had taken control of the business, a review of changes in the fine print on World Liberty's website shows.
Two of its co-founders, crypto entrepreneurs Zak Folkman and Chase Herro, were replaced as the controlling parties of World Liberty by an entity in which the Trump family holds a 60% stake.
The changes have not been previously reported.
Overall, the Trump family now has a claim on 75% of net revenues from token sales and 60% from World Liberty operations once the core business gets going. The arrangement means the Trump family is currently entitled to about $400 million in fees.