US President Trump has made numerous investments since taking office. Critics accuse him of using his position to increase his personal wealth. David Kirkpatrick recently calculated in a sensational report in The New Yorker that Trump, his children and their spouses have earned more than $3.4 billion since the beginning of Trump’s first presidency. Most of these deals, transactions and investments almost certainly would not have materialized if Trump had remained just a pure businessman.
Since his re-election as US president, Donald Trump has faced repeated accusations of personal gain. In fact, Trump and his family have recently made numerous deals – from real estate and cryptocurrencies to bonds and stocks. Is there a pattern here that indicates personal enrichment? In the US, the Government Ethics Act of 1978, passed in the wake of the Watergate scandal, requires presidents, vice presidents and other top officials to disclose their finances every year. These reports are filed with the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) and are publicly available.
100 MILLION DOLLARS OF BONDS
According to current documents from the Office of the Chief Operating Officer (OGE), Trump has made more than 600 financial transactions since January 21, 2025, investing more than $100 million in corporate, municipal and state bonds. Trump bought corporate bonds from Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, Meta, T-Mobile US, The Home Depot and UnitedHealth, among others. Critics see this as a potential conflict of interest.
INVESTMENTS IN SHARES
Regarding stock deals, there are currently no public announcements regarding purchases or sales since the start of Trump’s second term in January 2025. However, according to the latest announcement, at the end of 2024, Trump held significant stakes in Microsoft, Blackstone, and his company, Trump Media & Technology Group. Trump also reportedly owned shares in technology companies and high-cap companies such as Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, Tesla, Berkshire Hathaway, PepsiCo, JPMorgan Chase, Coca-Cola, and Pfizer.
NVIDIA SHARES
But the largest amounts of shares were in Nvidia, with $615,000 to $1.3 million, and Apple, with $650.000 to $1.35 million. Both companies have been significantly affected by Trump’s political decisions. Trump initially banned Nvidia from selling chips to China entirely, but recently relaxed that rule. In exchange, Nvidia must hand over 15 percent of its revenue in China to the US government — a highly unusual event and, according to experts, unprecedented in US history.
REPORTS WITH APPLE
In early August, Trump announced tariffs of up to 100 percent on imported computer chips and semiconductors. However, the iPhone company was exempted from these tariffs, after all, Apple CEO Tim Cook had promised Apple $100 billion in additional investment in the U.S. Apple’s stock price subsequently rose by more than four percent the next day.
REAL ESTATE BUSINESS IN ARAB COUNTRIES
Trump’s recent real estate deals are also hard to separate from his business and official travel. Trump’s first major trip abroad took him to Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates — all places where his family is pursuing new or expanded projects in parallel. In May, construction began on Trump Tower in Jeddah, a 47-story luxury skyscraper on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast. The Trump family also announced the construction of a “Trump-style” luxury golf course in Qatar as part of a $5.5 billion development, as well as the Trump International Hotel & Tower in Dubai — an 80-story property with the world’s tallest outdoor pool.
INVESTMENT IN CRYPTOCURRENCY
However, Trump’s cryptocurrency investments are increasingly competing with his traditional real estate business. In June, Forbes magazine estimated that Trump had probably earned about $1 billion in the past nine months alone from his cryptocurrency investments, such as Trump Coin and his stake in World Liberty Financial. In July, his holding company, Trump Media & Technology, announced that it had invested $2 billion in Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
HOW MUCH DOES TRUMP BENEFIT FROM HIS POLITICAL POSITION?
David Kirkpatrick recently calculated in a sensational report in The New Yorker that Trump, his children and their spouses have earned more than $3.4 billion since the beginning of Trump’s first presidency. Most of these deals, transactions and investments almost certainly would not have materialized if Trump had remained a clean businessman. In an interview with MSNBC’s The Weekend Primetime last Sunday, Kirkpatrick said that while other presidents and their children have found ways to profit from book deals and speaking fees, compared to the Trump family’s deals, they were all “minorities.”
