Ismaeel NaarEric Lipton and David Yaffe-Bellany
Ismaeel Naar and Tamir Kalifa reported from Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Eric Lipton from Washington; and David Yaffe-Bellany from San Francisco.
Eric Trump flew across the world to headline a cryptocurrency conference in the United Arab Emirates this week and told thousands of enthusiastic attendees that he and his father, the U.S. president-elect, were effectively working in tandem to push crypto, a business sector the family is directly invested in.
The message was notable because it contrasted drastically with the promise the family made when Donald J. Trump entered the White House four years ago, to keep business and government operations separate.
Eric Trump said he had even phoned his father — “Pops,” he said he calls him — to celebrate when the price of Bitcoin hit $100,000 after the president-elect announced he intended to appoint a crypto-friendly lawyer as the new chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the industry that the family now profits from.
“You’re going to have the most pro-crypto president in the history of America,” Eric Trump told the crowd. “Think about a president who isn’t going to allow Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies to be overregulated and stifled.”
