Trump Claims Outside Parties Manage His Finances, Denies Profiting Off Presidency

President Donald Trump on Wednesday brushed off questions about the staggering amount of money reported in his sprawling 2025 financial disclosure, saying his investment decisions are made by outside parties and he's only profiting because the stock market is up.

"I don't get involved in my personal — we have funds that run my money," Trump told reporters at Joint Base Andrews before boarding a Qatar-gifted jumbo jet that was converted to become the new Air Force One.

Trump had been asked what message Americans should take from his highly lucrative first year back in the White House.

"Well, I've made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don't talk to them. I never — I don't even speak to them," Trump said.

"I don't know what they call — closed accounts or something. You put your money in, and that's it. I don't talk to them, they're big institutions, and they run it," Trump said.

He added that he's had "a great career in business," then wondered aloud, "I don't know if I've had a better career in politics or business."

In fact, Trump made significantly more money in 2025 than the year prior, according to analyses of his annual disclosure forms. He reported at least $2.2 billion in revenue last year, compared with at least $622 million reported in 2024, according to The New York Times and other outlets that calculated similar totals.

That jump is largely due to the roughly $1.2 billion in cryptocurrency-related income that Trump reported in his 927-page disclosure.

The crypto figure includes about $580 million connected with World Liberty Financial, the company co-founded by members of Trump's family that issues the WLFI governance token and USD1 stablecoin. World Liberty launched USD1 in March 2025, after Trump began his non-consecutive second term as president.

Trump also disclosed receiving $635 million in royalties from what were described as "Celebration Coins." The royalties are tied to CIC Digital LLC, Trump's memecoin business, according to the disclosure.

"What they do is, we gave it — I think it's called a blind account," Trump said of his money managers. "Basically, they take it, and I purposely, I never speak to any of the people that run the money. But they're big institutions, and they invest in whatever they invest in."

Asked to respond to critics accusing him of profiting off the presidency, Trump said, "Well, you know why I'm profiting is the stock market's going up, everybody's profiting."

According to the Securities and Exchange Commission, 54.4% of Americans are invested in the stock market.

"So we're all profiting. I'm profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash, and I give it to institutions," Trump said. "I don't know if they know what they're doing or not, but they buy a vast array of things."

The massive financial document also shows Trump's purchases and sales of hundreds of companies' stocks. Some individual transactions totaled millions of dollars, with the biggest valued between $5 million and $25 million.

Some of those stock transactions occurred shortly before or after major news related to the corresponding companies. For instance, the form shows Trump purchased Amazon stock worth between $500,000 and $1 million on Sept. 23, the same day a trial began on federal allegations that Amazon duped customers into paying for Prime memberships.

Trump's previous financial disclosure report, which was released in May and covered the first three months of 2026, also generated concerns about potential conflicts of interest, all of which the White House has denied.

"Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest," White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly told CNBC in an email Wednesday.

While CNBC had asked for clarity on who is managing Trump's finances, Kelly's statement appeared tailored to defend the president's crypto-related disclosures.

"President Trump proudly made the United States the crypto capital of the world through executive actions, supporting legislation like the GENIUS Act, and other commonsense policies to drive innovation and economic opportunity for all Americans," Kelly said.

She also claimed that any reporters questioning whether Trump's actions are in Americans' best interests are "recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade."

Trump on Wednesday morning ignored a question about conflicts of interest.