A New York Times report has revealed how a member of the ruling family of the United Arab Emirates invested $2 billion in the Trump family’s cryptocurrency company just days before the UAE received access to rare artificial intelligence chips. Back in May, Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan invested $2 billion into World Liberty Financial, a cryptocurrency startup run by the Trump and Witkoff families — Steve Witkoff is President Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East. Two weeks later, the Trump administration approved the sale of hundreds of thousands of AI chips to the Emiratis, despite concerns that the chips could be shared with China.

The Times report did not directly link the two deals, but cast suspicion on the timing. Ryan Cummings, chief of staff at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, said, “If this is true, this is the largest public corruption scandal in the history of the United States and it’s not even close.”