Trump-Linked Crypto Firm Profits From Blacklisted Chinese AI

World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency firm in which the Trump family holds a 38% stake, is working with a Chinese company that distributes artificial intelligence models built by firms Washington has flagged as security risks. Experts and U.S. lawmakers have raised conflict-of-interest concerns, saying the profits flowing to the president's family run counter to the administration's hard line on China.

WorldClaude, a Hong Kong-based firm set up earlier this year, offers customers a range of AI models and accepts World Liberty's crypto tokens as payment, Reuters reported on the 17th local time. Through its stake in World Liberty, the Trump family collects the revenue generated when the tokens are used.

Reuters said it could not confirm the terms of the financial agreement between World Liberty and WorldClaude, or how much the Trump family has earned from crypto payments on the platform. As of June, however, the family's revenue from selling World Liberty tokens topped $1.4 billion (about 2 trillion won), the largest portion of its total crypto earnings of $2.3 billion (about 3.2 trillion won).

A Reuters review of the WorldClaude website found that 43 of the 90 models offered were developed by Chinese technology firms, including Alibaba, Baidu and Z.ai. WorldClaude also offers models from U.S. companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic.