Businesses Pouring Billions Into Trump's Memecoin Venture to Buy Influence Is the Very Definition of Graft

May 03, 2025

A logistics company loudly announced its intention to buy $20 million of Donald Trump’s useless “memecoin” cryptocurrency, openly describing this as an attempt to influence the president—though it looks like this tiny little company is itself trying to be a meme stock.

This just highlights the role of Trump’s memecoin as the center of a carnival of influence-peddling.

The BBC covers the most flagrant example:

The price of Donald Trump's cryptocurrency has soared after the US president promised to host two special events for its top investors.
The website for the $Trump meme coin says its 220 biggest holders will be invited to a private gala dinner with the president on 22 May, describing it as the "most EXCLUSIVE INVITATION in the world." …
As well as the gala dinner, which will be held at the Trump National Golf Club in Washington DC, there will be "an ultra-exclusive private VIP reception with the President" for the top 25 coin holders, the coin's website said.
Trump tokens in circulation are currently worth a total of around $2.5bn. They were first released just days before his inauguration on 20 January.

Cryptocurrency has struggled to show it can be an economically productive investment rather than pure speculation. But it does serve with perfect efficiency as a quasi-legal way for favor-seekers to transfer wealth directly to the president of the United States.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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