#TRUMP $TRUMP #WLF $WLFI $WLF World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm started by the Trump and Witkoff families, is accusing Justin Sun, a crypto billionaire and one of their investors, of waging a deliberate smear campaign to tank a crypto product he was allegedly betting against.
"Justin Sun chose to defame World Liberty โ repeatedly, publicly and to millions of followers. World Liberty filed this lawsuit as a last resort to correct the record and to protect its token holders, its employees and all its stakeholders," Tom Clare, World Liberty Financial's attorney, said in a press release.
"We are eager to expose the falsity of Sunโs statements in court and in public."
Sun, a crypto dealmaker and the founder of the TRON blockchain, a cryptocurrency platform, announced a $30 million investment of WLFI in November 2024, calling himself the companyโs largest backer at the time.
"We are thrilled to invest $30 million in World Liberty Financial as its largest investor. The U.S. is becoming the blockchain hub and Bitcoin owes it to [President Donald Trump]," Sun wrote in a post to X.
Two years later, World Liberty Financial is accusing Sun of, first, violating his agreement with the company as an investor by shorting WLFIโs token โ a position that set him up to profit if the companyโs value declined.
In response, World Liberty Financial froze Sunโs assets.
Then, Sun threatened to publicly criticize the company to his millions of followers online if the company didnโt unlock his holdings, according to World Liberty Financial.
"Justin Sun engaged in a defamatory campaign to torch World Liberty Financialโs reputation," Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump's Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff, posted on X. "He knew his claims were false and made them anyway to harm WLFI token holders. I look forward to the truth coming out in court."
$TRUMP Notably, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has accused Sun in the past of selling unregistered securities, manipulating the market to inflate the value of his assets and paying celebrities to promote his products without disclosures.
In that case, the SEC and Sun reached a settlement for $10 million earlier this year, although Sun denied any wrongdoing.