- Influencer Nick Pinto invested heavily in $TRUMP memecoins, attended an exclusive $TRUMP dinner expecting access to Trump, and left feeling scammed after Trump briefly spoke and departed.
- The event spurred political outrage and ethics probes as retail investors lost billions while insiders profited, raising bribery, emoluments, and corruption concerns.
Nick Pinto thought he’d hit the jackpot. The 25-year-old social media influencer, with a combined following of nearly 3 million across TikTok and Instagram, poured $370,000 into $TRUMP meme coins back in January, betting big on the promise of rubbing elbows with his political hero.
As a self-proclaimed MAGA die-hard who’d voted for Donald Trump twice, Pinto saw the investment as more than just crypto hype—it was a ticket to the inner circle.
But five months later, after a lavish but lackluster gala at Trump’s Virginia golf club, Pinto’s enthusiasm has curdled into outright regret. “I look at Trump differently than I did before attending,” he told reporters this week.
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In viral TikTok videos racking up millions of views, he’s vented about feeling “kind of scammed,” calling the whole affair false advertising.
The saga unfolded at Trump National Golf Club on May 22, where the top 220 holders of the $TRUMP token—collectively shelling out at least $148 million—gathered for what promoters billed as “the most exclusive invitation in the world” and a chance to “have dinner with Donald Trump.”
Pinto, who clocked in at No. 72 on the public leaderboard under the pseudonym “rich,” arrived buzzing with excitement. He’d even spray-painted his Mercedes G-Wagon with the $TRUMP ticker symbol in the days leading up.
His goal? A quick 15-second TikTok clip with the president, something to boost his 407,000 TikTok followers and cement his status in the MAGA crypto crowd.
Instead, guests—including foreign executives, influencers like Pinto, and even former NBA star Lamar Odom—sat down to a surf-and-turf meal of halibut and filet mignon that one attendee later roasted as “the worst food I’ve ever had at a Trump golf course” and akin to “Walmart steak.”
Trump chopper-landed around 7 p.m., delivered a 23-minute speech touting crypto’s potential and slamming the Biden-era crackdowns—”They were going after everybody,” he griped—and then bolted via helicopter without touching a bite or sip, not even a Diet Coke.
Swag bags for all 220 attendees included a black cap emblazoned with “$TRUMP” and “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT,” a poster of the leaderboard, and a lanyard—items Pinto filmed himself unboxing from the front seat of a Lamborghini, lamenting, “Pretty much all I got.”
That clip alone has drawn 1.2 million views.
Double-Whammy Scam? The Memecoin Lifestyle
Pinto’s frustration boiled over in interviews with Australia’s Four Corners program for its episode “Chasing Trump’s Billions,” airing this week. “Trump came, gave a speech for exactly 23 minutes, and then he left… didn’t stay for the dinner,” he recounted. “The entire dinner was about making money.”
He paused when asked if he felt ripped off: “I would say in a way, I do feel like I maybe kind of got scammed because it was definitely false advertising. They did advertise it as having dinner with Trump. And Trump did not eat anything at all.”
Speaking to The Daily Beast on Tuesday, Pinto doubled down: “I wouldn’t vote for Donald again… I may consider voting for his children, however, as I’ve met Eric and Donald Jr. and both were humble enough to talk to me.”
Still, he’s holding onto most of his coins, now worth about $480,000 at a trading price of $6.26—a sliver of hope amid a 3% daily dip.
Pinto’s not alone in his letdown. Online forums lit up with similar gripes: Reddit threads mocked the “Walmart steak” and lax security, with one user quipping, “Scammed by president twice—first the token, then dinner with no president.”
Another attendee, software engineer Morten Christensen, gushed beforehand about the “insane” prospect of meeting Trump via a meme coin contest but later joined the chorus of boos over the “soulless” vibe and empty promises.
The $TRUMP token, launched days before Trump’s January inauguration with 200 million coins flooding the market, had spiked 60% on dinner hype before cratering 16% the next morning.
Retail investors have collectively lost $2 billion since the initial surge, while Trump insiders pocketed at least $300 million in trading fees.
What started as a quirky reward for superfans quickly snowballed into a full-blown ethics firestorm, amplifying long-simmering debates over Trump’s crypto entanglements.
Protesters swarmed the golf club’s entrance that night, waving signs like “America is not for sale,” “Stop Trump’s crypto corruption,” and “No Kings,” chanting “shame” as guests rolled up.
Politics Get Involved
Democrats pounced: Sen. Elizabeth Warren dubbed it an “orgy of corruption,” while Sen. Chris Murphy grilled Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a Senate hearing about foreign attendees potentially lobbying the president unchecked.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal called it “putting a ‘for sale’ sign on the White House.”
Even some Republicans, like crypto advocate Sen. Cynthia Lummis, admitted the spectacle gave her “pause.”
GOP strategist Pete Seat went further, labeling the event a “mistake” that props up crypto at America’s expense.
At the heart of the outrage: the guest list. Top spot went to Justin Sun, the Chinese-born billionaire and Tron founder facing SEC fraud charges for market manipulation—charges conveniently paused after he dumped $75 million into a Trump-linked venture and held $17.8 million to $22 million in $TRUMP at the time.
Sun snagged one of four $100,000 gold Trump watches for top holders, alongside perks like a White House tour for the elite 25, per AP News.
Other invitees included Dubai-based traders, a Florida investor who’d accused his ex of swiping $850,000 in tokens, and a German self-proclaimed “youngest in all countries” who posted selfies by the presidential lectern.
The White House stonewalled requests for the full roster, insisting Trump hosted in a private capacity.
Lawmakers aren’t buying it. A bipartisan group of 35 House Democrats, led by Reps. Sean Casten and Adam Smith, fired off a letter to the DOJ last week demanding a probe into potential bribery and emoluments clause violations.
House Oversight Ranking Member Jamie Raskin echoed the call, blasting the dinner as a “roadmap for corruption” and urging disclosure of attendees amid Trump’s Vegas crypto conference push with VP JD Vance.
Sens. Jeff Merkley and Chuck Schumer introduced a bill to bar executive officials from crypto profits, citing the dinner as exhibit A.
Attorneys even floated that Trump might’ve breached federal law by rewarding investors with access.
Abuse of Power or Simply Capitalism?
This isn’t isolated—it’s the latest chapter in Trump’s crypto pivot, from 2021’s “scam against the dollar” rants to signing the Genius Act this summer, the first federal stablecoin framework.
His family’s ventures, like World Liberty Financial (where they own 60% and snag 75% of revenues), have ballooned their fortune by nearly $3 billion since inauguration.
An ABC/Four Corners investigation revealed UAE funds pouring $2 billion into Binance post-Trump meetings, raising foreign policy red flags.
Journalist John Lyons, who hosted the Four Corners special, clashed with Trump last month at the White House over his wealth surge: “How much richer are you now?” Trump snapped back, “My kids are running the business… You are hurting Australia very much right now.”
Ethics watchdogs like Accountable.US warn it’s “the most nakedly corrupt self-enrichment scheme in U.S. presidential history,” blurring lines between policy and profit.
Even as Trump touts making America the “crypto capital,” critics from PBS to Politico argue it’s eroding trust: “Just because the corruption is playing out in public doesn’t mean it isn’t rampant.”
For Pinto, the personal sting lingers.
As one Reddit cynic put it, “Greed from both sides, and Trump gains the most.”
The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment on Pinto’s claims or the broader backlash.
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