Trump and his family make billions off the presidency, and we pay more
THE CASE
The president and his family are using his second term to rake in money—and they seem fine with letting us all witness their corruption. Trump, Melania, Don Jr., and Eric have pulled in over $2 billion in cash and gifts since he was elected, according to the Center for America Progress’ Trump’s Take real-time financial tracker. Don Jr. and Eric have been busy with crypto, drones, military contracts, nuclear fusion, and a big overseas real estate push. All of which would not have been possible without their dad being the president. Trump and his family have pulled in billions from various crypto ventures including meme coins, the $400 million Qatari jet, Amazon’s Melania documentary, NFTs, and more. Jared Kushner, his son-in-law, has been sent around the world to conduct negotiations on Trump’s behalf, and Kushner has been active in countries where his private investment firm has billions of dollars of business. The Trump moral doctrine seems to be that they get to do whatever they want to make a buck, the rules don’t apply to them, and the rest of us get government services slashed, higher prices from tariffs, and skyrocketing gas prices. When he said we’ll be tired of all the winning, this isn’t what most people had in mind.
KEY FACTS AND DATA
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Eric and Donald Trump Jr. are stacking up business deals that are only possible because their dad is president.
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Trump and his sons have millions invested in World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto company that Eric and Don Jr. run. Today Bloomberg reported that WLFI sold an additional 5.9 billion tokens to private investors that previously went unreported. [Bloomberg]
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The Trump sons have gotten into the drone business just in time to compete for some lucrative Trump Pentagon contracts. Aureus Greenway Holdings, a golf course company Don Jr. and Eric partly own, merged with a Florida-based drone maker to create a military drone company called Powerus. The company has been pitching drone interceptors to Gulf states that were attacked by Iran after President Trump started the Iran war. [Military.com]
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Eric Trump recently invested in Xtend, an Israeli drone company that has contracts with the Pentagon. In November 2024, Don Jr. became a board member of Unusual Machines, a drone company that is also investing in a merger Xtend is pursuing with a U.S. company. [Al Jazeera]
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Don Jr. is on the board of Trump Media & Technology Group, which merged with TAE Technologies, a nuclear fusion company. The company has sought federal funding with the Department of Energy. [Reuters, PBS]
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In Trump’s first term, he pledged not to pursue business deals in foreign countries but that has gone out the window in his second term. The Trump Organization, run by Don Jr. and Eric, is set to pull in over $400 million from real estate deals in other countries. There’s a huge incentive for countries to give Trump’s company favorable deals to curry favor with the president of the United States, especially when Trump’s foreign policy has been so chaotic. [CREW]
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Don Jr. and Eric have pursued $10 billion in real estate deals in Saudi Arabia with a company close to the Saudi government. [Middle East Eye]
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Amazon is discussing rebooting The Apprentice, which had been Donald Trump’s signature television show, with Don Jr. potentially as the host. It would be surprising if Don Jr. did it for free. [Wall Street Journal]
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Jared Kushner: “peace negotiator” and investment fund profiteer.
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Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has been serving as an unofficial diplomatic envoy around the world, negotiating with Israel and Hamas, with Russia and Ukraine, with Iran, and traveling around on behalf of his father in law to many Gulf states attacked by Iran after Trump began the Iran war. Many of the peace proposals that Kushner and his diplomatic partner, Steve Witkoff, center on profits and economic development. The problem is both have massive conflicts of interest. [New York Times]
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After he left the White House in 2021, Kushner started a private investment firm in 2021 called Affinity Partners, which spent a few years seeking billions in investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund. Affinity pulled in $2 billion from the Saudis, and another billion from investors like Gulf states like the UAE and Qatar. Kushner has pulled in tens of millions in management fees, though the fund has not actually made any real profit for the investors. [Popular Information]
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Democrats in Congress have sought information about Kushner’s conflict of interest, saying it could threaten the safety of the American people. [The Hill]
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Ivanka Trump has not been as publicly active but is listed as a partner in Affinity Partners and thus benefits from the connection with foreign entities. [Rolling Stone]
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Trump and Melania pull in millions without doing any work.
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The Qatari government gave Trump a $400 million jet to use as Air Force One, but it will not stay with the government, it will go to Trump’s library after he leaves the presidency. After this gift was accepted, Qatar was allowed to build an air force facility in Idaho and joined a US effort to access AI chips. [NBC News, CBS News, Middle East Eye]
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Trump’s habit of returning to his golf clubs and properties most weekends of his presidency means that the federal government is paying for rooms and services at Trump’s personal businesses. There have also been political events hosted at Mar-a-Lago, which would not happen if Trump were not president and the leader of his party. A HuffPost analysis has estimated the cost to taxpayers at over $100 million. [HuffPost]
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Amazon paid $40 million for a documentary about Melania Trump, $28 million of which she pocketed. [Guardian]
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Melania launched her own meme coin right before her husband was inaugurated. Its value spiked, and then crashed 99%, leaving “investors” holding the bag while she earned money in transaction fees. [Benzinga]
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CALL TO ACTION
Share this post, which helps explain how Trump’s crypto scheme worked—and how he left average Americans holding the bag.