Not long after the 2024 presidential election, the cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun bought $75 million in digital coins from World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s crypto start-up.
World Liberty said it was “honored” to work with him. Mr. Sun, known for his globe-trotting promotion of the crypto industry, called World Liberty an “excellent project.”
Now that partnership has imploded. On Tuesday, Mr. Sun sued World Liberty in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of California, claiming that the company had tried to pressure him into buying another of its digital coins and threatened to report him to law enforcement in the United States.
The lawsuit represented an extraordinary break in a business partnership that once seemed mutually beneficial. Mr. Sun backed World Liberty at a time when the company was struggling to get its coin off the ground. The investment put him into business with the Trump family while he was fighting a fraud lawsuit by the Securities and Exchange Commission, sparking a public outcry about conflicts of interest.