Donald Trump has promised to have dinner with the top holders of his cryptocurrency memecoin $TRUMP, creating a pretty clear-cut opportunity for buying access to the leader of the free world. Freight Technologies Inc., a North American-based shipping company, wants to take advantage. The firm’s CEO Javier Selgas recently announced—publicly, on purpose, with zero consequence—that it intends to purchase as much as $20 million worth of $TRUMP so that he can try to influence the president’s policies on tariffs.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made by the company, it has tapped an institutional investor to provide financing for an initial purchase of $1 million worth of $TRUMP, with the possibility of an additional $19 million. Basically, it’s borrowing up to $20 million to get a seat at the table with Trump. The company isn’t shy about that goal, either. In a press release, Selgas said the purchase is part of the company’s “promotion of productive and active commerce between the United States and Mexico.”
The Trump Coin team recently announced that the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token would be invited to participate in a private dinner with Trump on May 22, with a VIP reception and tour for the top 25 holders—a prospect that immediately set off alarm bells for any reasonable person who believes that you shouldn’t be able to get a trip to the White House for lining the pockets of the president. It wasn’t hard to imagine that someone—a CEO, crypto insider, foreign actor—would buy up some $TRUMP in order to get a seat at the table with him for a night. It probably was a little less expected for a company to issue a press release about enacting that strategy.
Per the leaderboard on the Trump Coin website, the $1 million investment should be enough to get Selgas and Freight Technologies in the door for dinner. The current top holder of $TRUMP is Justin Sun, the founder of crypto platform TRON, which was investigated by the SEC for allegedly manipulating the price of the cryptocurrency. He holds approximately $1.2 million worth of $TRUMP, and is one of only two people who currently have more than $400,000 worth of the token.
Trump, for his part, is acting like he doesn’t know anything. During an appearance on NBC News’ Meet the Press over the weekend, Trump said “I haven’t even looked” when asked if he had profited off his cryptocurrency, which launched shortly before he took office for the second time. “If I own stock in something, and I do a good job, and the market goes up, I guess I’m profiting,” he said, which is a pretty good encapsulation of just how deep his understanding of the crypto space.
He doesn’t have to look to profit, of course. Around 80% of all $TRUMP coins are owned by two entities: CIC Digital, an affiliate of the Trump organization, and Fight Fight Fight LLC, which is co-owned by CIC Digital. So the vast majority of the tokens are already in Trump’s pockets. When people buy the token, like, for instance, when there is an announcement that holding the coin could get you a private dinner with the president, the price goes up, and so does the value of Trump company holdings. They also “receive trading revenue derived from trading activities,” per the Trump Coin site, so they’re cashing in on each transaction, too.
Trump has always been a transactional person. Now it just happens to be logged to the blockchain.
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