Justin Sun accused the President Donald Trump-backed crypto firm World Liberty Financial of concealing UAE citizenship to escape his federal lawsuit.
The Tron founder said on Nov. 3 that his lawyers had requested sanctions against World Liberty Financial and its attorneys after the company disclosed foreign ownership connections months into litigation over his $45 million investment.
The disclosure introduced another controversy surrounding the president’s cryptocurrency business, which has promoted itself as an American financial venture despite a reported $500 million investment from an Abu Dhabi-backed entity tied to a senior UAE government official.
Sun accused World Liberty of selectively invoking its national identity depending on whether it was raising money or defending itself in court.
He wrote on X:
“World Liberty was proudly American when it was selling tokens. It discovered its UAE roots only when it needed a way out of an American federal courtroom.”
The accusation followed an August court filing in which World Liberty expanded its ownership disclosure from one entity to 22, identifying citizenship in Florida, Delaware, Puerto Rico and the UAE.
Sun alleged the company initially disclosed only Florida citizenship, despite rules requiring it to identify the members of its ownership structure.
The revised filing came six days after an Aug. 20 hearing over World Liberty’s attempt to move the investor dispute into arbitration. Sun said the judge had indicated that certain claims should remain in open court, while others could proceed through arbitration.
World Liberty subsequently argued that its UAE citizenship deprived the federal court of jurisdiction because foreign parties were present on both sides of the lawsuit.
Sun, who sued the company in April for allegedly inducing his investment through fraud and unlawfully freezing his tokens, said his lawyers had already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars contesting World Liberty’s arbitration request.
He accused the company of failing to disclose ownership information that could have determined the court’s jurisdiction at the beginning of the case.
Trump’s $500 million UAE connection draws renewed scrutiny
The ownership dispute carries broader political significance because World Liberty’s ties to the UAE were already attracting scrutiny over potential conflicts involving the president’s family.
In January 2025, days before Trump’s inauguration, an investment vehicle backed by UAE National Security Adviser Sheik Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan agreed to acquire a 49% stake in World Liberty for $500 million.
The agreement, signed by Eric Trump, directed approximately $187 million to Trump family-controlled entities, according to reporting on the transaction.
Sheikh Tahnoon, a brother of the UAE president, also oversees an investment empire with interests in artificial intelligence and advanced technology.
The transaction subsequently drew scrutiny because the Trump administration expanded the UAE’s access to advanced American AI chips. Democratic lawmakers raised questions about potential conflicts between the president’s business interests and US foreign policy.
World Liberty has rejected suggestions that its investment arrangement influenced US government decisions. President Trump has also said he was unaware of the transaction and that his sons manage the business.
The company’s public messaging has nevertheless emphasized its American identity.
Its Gold Paper declares that World Liberty is not organized offshore and describes it as an American corporation seeking to bring decentralized finance to the US.
Those statements are not necessarily inconsistent with foreign ownership. A US-organized company can have foreign investors and acquire foreign citizenship for purposes of federal diversity-jurisdiction rules.
The reported UAE investment also came after Sun’s initial November 2024 token purchase, and it became public months before World Liberty amended its court disclosure.
The unanswered question in Sun’s sanctions request concerns why the company did not identify the relevant foreign ownership connections when the federal litigation began.
Sun contends that World Liberty either failed to provide its attorneys with accurate information or that its lawyers failed to adequately investigate the company’s ownership structure.
World Liberty has previously rejected Sun’s fraud allegations and accused him of misconduct in a separate defamation lawsuit.
Sun said he would pursue the original dispute in California state court after the federal judge addresses his sanctions request, leaving the court to determine whether the delayed ownership disclosure warrants penalties against the company or its legal team.
