World Liberty accuses Justin Sun of 'misconduct' in response to Tron founder's defamation claims

Ten months ago, Eric Trump was posting on X about how much he loved Justin Sun. This week, he's likening a lawsuit from Sun to the infamous $6 million duct-taped banana. Sun filed a complaint Monday in the Northern District of California, accusing World Liberty Financial of illegally freezing roughly four billion $WLFI tokens worth around $1 billion. The Trump-family-backed DeFi venture's informal Tuesday response dismissed the suit as a "desperate" deflection and pledged to keep protecting its users, with co-founder Zach Witkoff accusing Sun of "misconduct."

Justin Sun’s recent lawsuit against @worldlibertyfi is a desperate attempt to deflect attention from Sun’s own misconduct. His claims are entirely meritless, and World Liberty looks forward to getting the case thrown out promptly.

He engaged in misconduct that required World…

— Zach Witkoff (@ZachWitkoff) April 22, 2026 Neither he nor the company spelled out Sun's alleged misconduct. A spokesperson for the firm declined to comment, instead referring CoinDesk to Witkoff and fellow co-founder Eric Trump's posts on X. The only thing more ridiculous than this lawsuit is spending $6 million on a banana duct-taped to a wall. We are incredibly proud of the @worldlibertyfi team…

— Eric Trump (@EricTrump) April 22, 2026 The complaint itself may fill in the blanks. Sun alleged that World Liberty leveled a shifting set of accusations against him in private conversations and correspondence, none of which, he argued, the company has backed up with evidence. According to the filing, World Liberty has at various points blamed Sun for the roughly 40% price crash $WLFI experienced on Sept. 1, 2025, the first day the token became tradable. WLFI also claimed Sun drove down the price by short-selling perpetual futures on a centralized exchange, according to Sun's complaint, an accusation Sun said is false, and that the complaint notes would be difficult to pin on him, given his transfers happened hours after the steepest drop. World Liberty separately objected to Sun's $100 million purchase of $TRUMP tokens from a different Trump-backed project, according to the filing, but Sun said this buy got the blessing of a Trump family member who is a partner in both ventures. The company allegedly also accused Sun of acting as a straw purchaser for other investors in violation of his token purchase agreement, executing prohibited transfers to the exchanges HTX and Binance and submitting inadequate know-your-customer documentation, according to the filing. "On September 25, 2025, Mr. Herro repeatedly threatened to report Mr. Sun to U.S. criminal authorities over these unspecified KYC issues — which Mr. Herro and World Liberty have refused to explain in anything other than the broadest terms despite repeated requests from Plaintiffs for additional information," Tuesday's filing said. WLFI has yet to file a response to Sun's suit.