(NEW YORK) — The Trump family’s flagship cryptocurrency venture filed a defamation suit on Monday against Chinese crypto mogul Justin Sun, escalating an ongoing legal and social media feud with one of the company’s most notable investors.
Sun sued the Trump-backed firm World Liberty Financial last month, accusing its officers of improperly freezing his investment in the firm’s digital tokens.
World Liberty Financial denied those claims publicly and on Monday accused Sun, in a lawsuit filed in Florida state court, of embarking on a “scorched-earth pressure campaign against World Liberty.”
“Sun weaponized his money and his influence within the industry, hiring influencers and deploying fake social-media ‘bot’ accounts to amplify his lies,” the suit asserts. “His actions were coordinated, deliberate, and aimed at burning World Liberty to the ground.”
World Liberty Financial says in its suit that it froze Sun’s assets “to protect” its community when it learned of alleged “misconduct” perpetrated by Sun, “including suspected short selling of $WLFI token … and straw purchases of $WLFI tokens on behalf of undisclosed third parties,” referring to World Liberty Financial’s flagship digital asset.
Sun called the lawsuit “nothing more than a meritless PR stunt” on social media and said he’ll “look forward to defeating the case in court.”
Donald Trump Jr., a World Liberty Financial co-founder, on Monday re-posted a thread from the World Liberty Financial account on X laying out its claims in the lawsuit and urging his followers to “Read this entire thread for the truth!!!!”
The dueling lawsuits mark the collapse of what was once a lively and mutually fruitful relationship, after Sun pumped more than $45 million into World Liberty Financial and many more millions into President Trump’s meme coin, called $TRUMP.
Earlier this year, Sun agreed to pay $10 million to resolve a civil fraud case brought by the Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission — a resolution critics framed as a favorable outcome for the Chinese mogul.
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