Eric Trump has moved from director to non-voting board observer at ALT5 Sigma, a Nasdaq-listed company building a treasury of World Liberty Financial tokens. An SEC filing said the board was restructured to comply with Nasdaq listing rules.
Eric Trump will serve as a board observer rather than a director at ALT5 Sigma, the Nasdaq-listed company that is building a treasury of tokens issued by the Trump family-backed crypto venture World Liberty Financial, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Forbes was first to report the change on Tuesday, September 9.
What the filing says
The filing, dated August 25, 2025, said the company had restructured its board “to comply with Nasdaq’s listing rules” after discussions with the exchange. It did not say which rule was involved. Under the change, Eric Trump “will no longer serve as a director” and was redesignated as a board observer. Board observers can attend board meetings but do not vote.
Zak Folkman, a co-founder and chief operating officer of World Liberty Financial, was also moved from director to observer. The filing said Folkman could later be named a director, subject to approval by the company’s stockholders. Zach Witkoff, a World Liberty co-founder and the son of U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, was described in the filing as “the initial nominee to the Board selected by WLF” and is set to serve as chairman of the board.
Neither ALT5 Sigma nor Eric Trump publicly explained the change beyond the filing. Forbes reported that some legal experts were unsure why Nasdaq’s rules would allow one World Liberty nominee on the board but not another.
The $1.5 billion World Liberty deal
ALT5 Sigma, a small financial technology company that was previously known as JanOne, announced in August a plan to raise $1.5 billion through the sale of its shares and use most of the money to buy WLFI, the governance token of World Liberty Financial. Under the arrangement, World Liberty gained the right to nominate directors to the company’s board, and Eric Trump and Folkman were initially announced as directors.
According to The Block, ALT5 Sigma has acquired roughly 7.3 billion WLFI tokens at about $0.18 each, and the company has said its holdings amount to about 7.5% of the token’s total supply. WLFI began trading publicly on September 1. Strategies like this, in which a public company holds a single cryptocurrency as its main asset, have become popular in 2025 as a way for stock market investors to gain indirect exposure to digital tokens.
Eric Trump’s crypto ventures
Eric Trump, the second son of President Donald Trump and an executive vice president of the Trump Organization, has become one of the family’s most visible figures in the cryptocurrency industry. He is a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, which launched in 2024, and is involved in American Bitcoin, a bitcoin mining company that began trading on Nasdaq in early September. Weeks before the filing became public, Eric Trump and his brother Donald Trump Jr. joined World Liberty executives at a Nasdaq opening bell ceremony.
The Trump family’s crypto businesses have drawn criticism from Democratic lawmakers and government ethics groups, who argue that the president’s family profits from an industry his administration regulates. The White House has said there are no conflicts of interest.
Why board rules matter
Nasdaq-listed companies must meet governance standards that include requirements for independent directors and for the makeup of key board committees. Companies typically adjust their boards when the exchange raises questions about whether those standards are met, and the use of non-voting observer seats is a common way to keep investors or partners involved without counting them as directors.
Other questions facing ALT5 Sigma
The board change comes as ALT5 Sigma faces other scrutiny. CryptoSlate reported that a special committee of the board is reviewing certain matters, including possible misstatements in the company’s financial statements, and that a court in Rwanda has made findings against one of the company’s subsidiaries in a money laundering case. The company has not publicly detailed the outcome of either matter.
The board structure is expected to be finalized once the company’s stockholders vote on the proposed director appointments.
Sources: The Block, "Eric Trump will have reduced board role at WLFI treasury company Alt5 Sigma" (September 9, 2025); CryptoSlate, "Eric Trump removed from ALT5 Sigma board following Nasdaq rule compliance requirements" (September 9, 2025)
Correction, October 25, 2026: Eric Trump was moved from director to board observer at ALT5 Sigma, according to an SEC filing dated August 25, 2025. An earlier version said he was removed from the board.
