On Thursday night, 220 of the biggest investors in Donald Trump’s meme coin “$TRUMP” attended a private dinner at one of the President’s luxury golf courses in Virginia, raising serious concerns from critics about regulation of the crypto industry and murky access to the White House. The event has been billed by organizers as “the most exclusive invitation in the world.”
The list of attendees for the dinner has been largely kept under wraps, but some estimates, like one from crypto analytics firm Nansen, say the top 220 investors spent upwards of $394 million to win the contest. The top 25 investors will receive a private tour of the White House and will be able to dine directly with the President, according gettrumpmemes.com, the official website of the President’s meme coin.
That level of access is unheard of, said Daniel Weiner, the director for elections & government at the Brennan Center for Justice. He told Scripps News this dinner has some notable differences from other fundraising events presidents may hold.
“It’s completely unprecedented to have a United States president attending a dinner like this,” Weiner said. “For wealthy investors in business that he owns who can pay hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars for access to the president. Let’s be clear, of course, presidents do — other presidents and this president — have had fundraisers for their campaigns and lavish dinners and the like. But to have it literally be for a business that’s essentially putting money into the president’s pocket — that’s something new and unprecedented and, I think a lot of Americans would say, pretty troubling.”
During a press call organized by Accountable.US, a nonpartisan watchdog group in the crypto space, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also harshly criticized the President’s dinner.
“What’s happening tonight at Trump’s golf course — where he is hosting a dinner for the top investors in his meme coins — is in effect, putting a ‘For Sale’ sign on the White House. It’s auctioning off access,” said Senator Blumenthal.
The top investor in $TRUMP appears to be Chinese billionaire and crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun, who claimed he was the winner of the contest and posted multiple times on X about discussing the future of crypto with the President. In 2023, Sun was charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with market manipulation and offering unregistered securities.
That investigation has since stalled, while Sun remains one of a major investor in the Trump family crypto project, World Liberty Financial.
The president’s comments and activities at the dinner are closed to the press and the White House has largely referred questions about attendees to the Trump Organization, According to the Associated Press. The White House did not provide a list of who was attending.
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“When 80 percent of the $TRUMP coin competition winners’ circle appear to be either foreigners or U.S. regulation dodgers, it’s imperative the President disclose who these mostly anonymous actors are and what they want from his administration,” said Accountable.US Executive Director Tony Carrk.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the President is attending the event “in his personal time” and that the President was “abiding by all conflict of interest laws applicable to him.” Leavitt added that it was “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off the presidency.”
Meanwhile, progressive advocacy group Public Citizen, along with Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley (D-OR), will hold a protest outside the President’s golf course during the event.
All of this comes as the Senate has advanced a first-of-its-kind bill that would regulate specific kinds of cryptocurrencies known as stablecoins — whose value is tied to other assets like the U.S. dollar.
The dinner also comes as Bitcoin, the crypto world’s first and foremost currency, reached an all-time high earlier this week. Each individual coin now trades for more than $111,000 as of Thursday afternoon.
The President first launched his $TRUMP coin on January 17th, three days before his inauguration. Its value surged to a total of $14.5 billion before he was sworn in. It has since lost 2/3 of its value.