Even before Donald Trump officially began his second term in office, his family businesses were beginning the race to milk the presidency for every cent they could. Now, a new analysis from The New Yorker has put a potential dollar figure on how much Trump’s crypto ventures, real estate deals, licensing agreements, and other grifts have netted America’s first family over the course of Trump’s time in politics: a staggering $3.4 billion.
The total is an estimate, as the Trump Organization and its various auxiliary companies and ventures — which are largely under the control of the president’s adult children — have not been entirely transparent regarding their finances.
The New Yorker estimated that the president’s various cryptocurrency had generated at least $2.37 billion in value, financial investments coordinated by Donald Jr. and Eric Trump have generated $339.6 million, and Trump’s flagship Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, has raked in $125 million in extra profits.
Tack onto that $127.7 million in legal fee collection and merchandise sales and a media empire estimated to be worth $116 million, and it becomes clear that the Trumps have built themselves a corporate empire on the back of their patriarch’s public office.
Just last month, the president took a detour from a state trip to Scotland, for which millions of taxpayer dollars were spent on travel and security, to inaugurate a new Trump golf course near Aberdeen, Scotland. On that same trip, Trump hosted British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at his private Turnberry golf club — which (as was the practice during Trump’s first term) will likely profit off of the president’s choice to use it as a venue. The same week, it was reported that Trump has privately discussed hosting the G20 summit of world leaders at his Doral golf club.
As previously reported by Rolling Stone, the president has complained to his inner circle that it was “stupid” of him to leave so much money on the table during his first term, and that he planned to rectify his mistake the second time around.
The fact that the family’s business deals making headlines around the world are being coordinated by Trump’s children is a convenient loophole that allows the president to escape many of the disclosure and ethics laws that govern private investments by public officials.
After years accusing his political opponents — and their sons — of leveraging the status of the White House to enrich themselves, the Trumps are engaged in an open campaign of open grift unlike any in the history of the Oval Office, and Americans are now just beginning to get a full picture of just how rich the People’s House is making the president.
