JokersUpdates.com: Current Affairs - "In May, Witkoff’s son announced Tahnoon’s investment firms would deposit $2b into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency start-up founded by the Witkoffs & Trumps. Weeks later, the WH agreed to

allow UAE access to the world’s most advanced & scarce chips, a crucial tool in race to dominate AI."

By Eric LiptonDavid Yaffe-BellanyBradley HopeTripp Mickle and Paul Mozur
Reporting from Washington, New York, London, Dubai, San Francisco and Taiwan

Sept. 15, 2025

This summer, Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s Middle East envoy, paid a visit to the coast of Sardinia, a stretch of the Mediterranean Sea crowded with super yachts.

On one of those extravagant vessels, Mr. Witkoff sat down with a member of the ultrarich ruling family of the United Arab Emirates. He was meeting Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, a trim figure in dark glasses who controls $1.5 trillion of the Emiratis’ sovereign wealth.

It was the latest engagement in a consequential alliance.

Over the past few months, Mr. Witkoff and Sheikh Tahnoon had become both diplomatic allies and business partners, testing the limits of ethics rules while enriching the president, his family and his inner circle, according to an investigation by The New York Times.

At the heart of their relationship are two multibillion-dollar deals. One involved a crypto company founded by the Witkoff and the Trump families that benefited both financially. The other involved a sale of valuable computer chips that benefited the Emirates economically.

While there is no evidence that one deal was explicitly offered in return for the other, the confluence of the two agreements is itself extraordinary. Taken together, they blurred the lines between personal and government business and raised questions about whether U.S. interests were served.

In May, Mr. Witkoff’s son Zach announced the first of the deals at a conference in Dubai. One of Sheikh Tahnoon’s investment firms would deposit $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency start-up founded by the Witkoffs and Trumps.

Two weeks later, the White House agreed to allow the U.A.E. access to hundreds of thousands of the world’s most advanced and scarce computer chips, a crucial tool in the high-stakes race to dominate artificial intelligence. Many of the chips would go to G42, a sprawling technology firm controlled by Sheikh Tahnoon, despite national security concerns that the chips could be shared with China.

Those negotiations involved another key White House official with ties to the tech industry and to the Middle East: David Sacks. A longtime venture capitalist, Mr. Sacks serves as the administration’s A.I. and crypto czar, a newly created position that has allowed him to shape tech policy even as he continues to work in Silicon Valley.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/15/us/politics/trump-uae-chips-witkoff-world-liberty.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mU8.zmf-.mhnWlgsu57vJ&smid=url-share