The lawyer for Trump's new crypto firm was accused of trying to take over another digital asset company
- Former president Trump unveiled a new crypto company earlier this week, World Liberty Financial.
- Several of the key execs involved have faced recent lawsuits, including its general counsel.
Alex Golubitsky, the general counsel of former President Donald Trump's new cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial, was fired from a different cryptocurrency company, then attempted to take it over, the CEO of that company alleged in court documents.
On Monday, Trump announced he would be the face of World Liberty Financial in a livestream on X. While it's unclear what his official role in the organization is, he's listed in a company white paper as its "chief crypto advocate," according to a white paper obtained by CoinDesk. Three of Trump's children are also connected to World Liberty Financial, including his 18-year-old son Barron.
Golubitsky, whose legal practice focuses on cryptocurrency, was fired as chief legal officer of a cryptocurrency company called Umami last January, according to filings in a case brought before Delaware's court of chancery by Umami's CEO, Alex O'Donnell.
Subsequently, Golubitsky and another Umami employee appointed themselves to Umami's board of managers and attempted to "abscond" with the company's intellectual property, O'Donnell alleged in the suit.
Golubitsky declined to comment.
Cryptocurrency publications cast O'Donnell as a "rogue" CEO attempting to centralize control of the company, and who crashed the value of Umami's token. In his lawsuit, O'Donnell claims that he was moving to ensure the company's compliance with securities laws when Golubitsky improperly attempted to wrench the company away from him.
Last year, a Delaware vice chancellor ruled in favor of O'Donnell, finding that Golubitsky and the other employee were not members of Umami's board of managers, and awarding O'Donnell more than $375,000 in attorney's fees and costs. O'Donnell declined to comment.
Golubitsky is not the only person involved in World Liberty Financial whose past has been called into question. Two other key employees, Chase Herro and Zachary Folkman, have a professional history littered with debts and lawsuits, Business Insider previously reported. Herro and Folkman's previous crypto venture, Dough Finance, was hacked this summer; the hackers stole over $2 million from users.
Nor is Trump a stranger to legal proceedings. The former president and his businesses have been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits since the 1970s, USA Today found.
In recent months, Trump has been attempting to appeal to the cryptocurrency community, despite once calling crypto a "scam."
Wednesday, Trump made a campaign stop at a bar in Greenwich Village, where he paid for hamburgers and Diet Cokes with bitcoin.