Benjamin Greenberg holds roughly 10,000 shares in Circle — not exactly a stake that moves markets. But the lawsuit he filed in federal court in Washington this week aims squarely at the president. It accuses Donald Trump of pocketing more than $2 billion in payments from a foreign government, in violation of the Constitution.
The complaint centers on two deals. Days around Trump's January 2025 inauguration, a 49% stake in World Liberty Financial — the Trump family's crypto venture — was sold for $500 million to an entity linked to Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE's national security adviser. The second deal is bigger: Abu Dhabi's MGX fund, also chaired by Tahnoon, poured $2 billion into Binance, settling the payment in USD1, the stablecoin World Liberty issues.
Greenberg's case rests on the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which bars federal officeholders from taking payments from foreign governments without congressional sign-off. By his count, World Liberty has generated more than $1.4 billion for the Trump and Witkoff families since November 2024, while Trump himself reported over $1.4 billion in crypto income for 2025.
Technically, this isn't Greenberg suing on his own behalf — it's a derivative suit, filed in Circle's name. His argument: the company got hurt by unfair competition, since USD1 enjoyed political favor while USDC's margins got squeezed down to 7% despite billions in revenue. He's asking the court to force Trump to hand back the profits and block further violations.
Circle moved fast to distance itself, saying it never authorized the filing. World Liberty's lawyer Bill Burck dismissed it as "more a partisan press release than a lawsuit," and White House spokesperson Anna Kelly called it frivolous, denying any conflict of interest. None of the allegations have been tested in court yet, and proving a sitting president violated the Constitution is a case with almost no modern precedent.
