Author: Sander Lutz
Compiled by: TechFlow News
TechFlow Introduction: Amid swirling rumors of a "Trump family exit" from World Liberty Financial, Donald Trump Jr. and co-founder Zach Witkoff publicly addressed the speculation at the Miami Consensus conference. Beyond clarifying the rumors, Witkoff revealed the company is in the "final stages of obtaining conditional approval" for its national trust bank license application. Simultaneously, the company has filed a counterclaim against Tron founder Justin Sun. A single clarification has brought to light three separate threads: the license, litigation, and political controversy.
Donald Trump Jr. responded on Thursday at the Miami Consensus cryptocurrency conference to a recent claim circulating on social media: that he and family members had quietly exited World Liberty Financial.
"I think I saw something on Twitter about Don and Eric having walked away from the project," said Zach Witkoff, the other co-founder of World Liberty, on stage.
"That's news to me," Trump Jr. chimed in. He attributed the rumor to World Liberty's earlier removal of the list of co-founders, including President Trump and his three sons, from the company's official website. Subsequently, some individuals capitalized on this change, with bot accounts amplifying the speculation.
"If you get enough people just kind of running with whatever they're fed, plus you've got bots pushing it... If it were true, I wouldn't be on this stage," Trump Jr. said.
"To my knowledge, Don and Eric are still co-founders of this project," Witkoff added.
It is worth noting that the moderator for this Q&A, David Wachsman, is himself the head of public relations for World Liberty and not a neutral third party.
Counterclaim Against Justin Sun: 'We Would Not Sue Without Evidence'
The conversation then shifted to the lawsuit World Liberty filed this week against cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, the founder of the Tron network and one of World Liberty's largest financial backers. Last month, Sun sued World Liberty first, alleging serious misconduct by the company's management.
World Liberty subsequently filed a counterclaim, asserting that Sun not only publicly spread false statements about the company but also secretly shorted the company's native token, WLFI, in an attempt to drive down its price.
"We would not be bringing this suit without the evidence," Witkoff said, calling the legal action a "last resort."
Bank License: 'Final Stages of Conditional Approval'
Witkoff then steered the discussion towards World Liberty's regulatory ambitions. In January of this year, the company submitted an application for a national trust bank license to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), an agency under the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Once approved, World Liberty would be able to provide crucial banking service functionalities for its USD-pegged stablecoin, USD1.
"We're very excited about getting the charter," Witkoff said. "I think we're in the final stages of getting conditional approval."
This very license has been a focal point of criticism from Democrats in recent months. Senator Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly pointed to World Liberty's bank license application as evidence of what "may be the most disgraceful presidential corruption scandal in American history."
