Trump's Profitable Year: Billions Earned, Big Tech Investments Made

The New York Times has delved deep into Donald Trump's financial disclosures from the first year of his second presidential term. Without a doubt, it was the most personally profitable period of any president's term in office, personally netting him a figure north of $2 billion. While much of that largesse was earned via Cryptocurrency sales, Trump has also become an investor in big tech. The paper reports that on July 23, he bought up to $5 million of stock in Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, NVIDIA and Broadcom. It notes, too, the purchases were made on the same day the White House would release its long-awaited AI Action Plan.

In January, The New York Times reported that brokerage accounts tied to the Trump family made more than 3,600 trades. But while the Trump family does not have its assets in a blind trust, it says it does not have a say in which companies its brokers buy and sell shares in. The paper has reported, however, that Trump has often made "well timed" trades, such as an investment made in Dell shortly before it secured a $9.7 billion defense contract. As the Times reports, Trump was legally obligated to disclose the purchases of stock in Amazon, Apple, Microsoft and the rest, but he did not. As a consequence of his repeated omissions, he has had to "pay a small fine for failing to honor this rule." It's likely any future violations may not be so easy to deal with —- in January 2025, Trump said he was in favor of American citizens who are "repeat offenders" being made to leave the US.