Gavin Newsom Wants to Launch a Meme Coin Just to Troll Trump

California governor Gavin Newsom has said he will release his own meme coin in the Democratic politician’s latest dig at President Donald Trump. 

Newsom said Friday on the Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway podcast that he’d step up his campaign to mock President Trump by releasing “Trump Corruption Coin.” 

The California governor joked that the upcoming cryptocurrency would do better than the digital token President Trump released in January, the Solana-based cryptocurrency that trades as Official Trump.  

“We’re about to put a meme coin out and you know what, Donald Trump? We’ll see how well your coin does versus our coin,” Newsom said. 

He added that “Trump Corruption Coin” would be the best name for the asset. Turning serious, Newsom then said: “This is one of the great grifters of our time,” referring to President Trump. “This is just jaw-dropping.” 

Newsom has been mocking the U.S. president by posting on X in Trump’s signature style, and copying his language and famous phrases. 

Decrypt was unable to reach Gavin Newsom’s office. 

President Trump ahead of his January inauguration released Official Trump—or TRUMP—a meme coin that runs on the Solana network. 

The token shot up in value before quickly crashing—as meme coins tend to do—and Democrats have since criticized the commander-in-chief for cashing in on this and various other crypto ventures.

TRUMP is the 77th biggest cryptocurrency with a market cap of nearly $1.7 billion. It was recently trading for $8.42, according to CoinGecko, well below the all-time high of $73.43 it hit following its January debut.

Meme coins are cryptocurrencies based on Internet culture, often celebrities or online jokes. They are known for their extreme volatility and relatively short shelf lives.

President Trump campaigned to help the cryptocurrency industry, promising to ease regulations as president, create a national Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and going so far as to say all future Bitcoin would be mined by U.S. companies. He received significant backing from the industry during his campaign as a result.

But opposition politicians have said the president is lining his pockets with his crypto ventures, and have criticized Trump for his apparent conflicts of interest. 

On Monday, a crypto project backed by President Trump, his sons, and the White House’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, debuted its token on major exchanges. 

WLFI, which is the governance token of Ethereum-based World Liberty Financial, gave the project a valuation of over $26 billion following its debut on exchanges like Coinbase and Kraken. The Trump family owns a significant portion of the WLFI token supply, their share valued today at nearly $6 billion.