Money Grab/Profit from his own market-moving decisions
SEC drops appeal in Ripple XRP case
On March 19, 2025, Ripple’s CEO said the SEC would drop its appeal of a 2023 ruling in the XRP case, ending a roughly four-year enforcement fight. No money went to the Trump family. The retreat came while the family was building its own crypto business.
What happened
The SEC sued Ripple in December 2020 over its sales of the XRP token. In July 2023 Judge Analisa Torres ruled that Ripple’s sales to institutions violated securities law while its programmatic sales to retail buyers did not. In August 2024 she imposed a $125 million penalty, a fraction of the roughly $2 billion the SEC sought, and an injunction against further institutional sales. The SEC appealed.
On March 19, 2025, Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse announced the SEC would abandon its appeal. The two sides then jointly asked the court to cut the penalty to $50 million and dissolve the injunction. Judge Torres refused in June 2025.
In August 2025 both parties dropped their appeals at the Second Circuit. The case ended with the full $125 million penalty and the injunction in place. Ripple gave about $4.9 million to Trump’s inaugural committee. It is not a Trump-family company, and no money in this record went to the Trump family.
Who benefited
Ripple saw the agency stop fighting to overturn the part of the ruling it lost, and the four-year case ended. It did not get the penalty cut it sought with the SEC’s help.
Who wanted something
Ripple had the SEC’s appeal pending against it and had given about $4.9 million to the inaugural committee two months earlier. It then joined the SEC in asking the court to cut the penalty it still owed.
Who lost out
Investors lost out when the SEC walked away from an appeal in a case where a court had already found violations. The SEC then joined the defendant in asking a judge to cut its own penalty by $75 million. The judge said no.
Why it matters
The SEC ended its enforcement against Ripple as the Trump family’s own financial interest in crypto grew. It went as far as asking a court to reduce a penalty it had already won. A regulator retreating from a sector the president’s family profits from raises a conflict even where the company has no tie to the family.