In accordance with Donald Trump, the forty fifth and forty seventh president is a really beneficiant man. “I’m proud to be the one President (with the doable exception of the Late, Nice George Washington) to donate my Wage,” he mentioned in a Fact Social submit. “My first ‘Paycheck’ went to the White Home Historic Affiliation, as we make a lot wanted renovations to the gorgeous ‘Individuals’s Home.’”
In his first time period, Trump made a giant present about donating his authorities wage. And he’s doing the identical now too. The entire spectacle is simply that: Trump is making an attempt to suggest that he doesn’t want the presidency, and that he’s not concerned about earning money by the job Individuals elected him to do.
Trump’s 2020 tax returns solid doubt on whether or not he has donated each paycheck as president. However no matter how a lot of his wage Trump is definitely donating, it’s clear that the presidency has drastically benefited Trump financially. From the very starting, Trump has used the presidency as a money-making instrument, utilizing his perch from the White Home to funnel cash into his companies. When he first received the presidency in 2016, overseas governments began spending cash on his personal companies by staying at his resorts. The Secret Service spent hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — taxpayers’ cash — on Trump’s properties. And Trump by no means divested from his companies to make sure that there could be no battle of curiosity.
Now, in his second time period, the best way Trump is making the most of the presidency is extra brazen than ever earlier than. Whereas operating his marketing campaign in 2024, Trump’s media firm went public, permitting anybody to purchase a stake in his enterprise. He has made hundreds of thousands promoting Trump-branded merchandise, from cologne to sneakers to bibles. He even accepted a aircraft value a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} — which might be transferred to his presidential library after he leaves the White Home — from the Qatari authorities.
However to place into perspective simply how a lot cash Trump is extracting from the presidency, look no additional than the Trump household’s crypto ventures. Simply earlier than his second inauguration, Trump launched a meme coin, as did his spouse, Melania Trump — a blatant show of how the Trumps use the presidency for monetary achieve. If Trump weren’t about to grow to be president after they launched these cash, then would they’ve attracted as many traders as they did?
So simply how a lot cash is Trump really making from the presidency?
The Trumps simply can’t give up crypto
The amount of cash Trump is making from his crypto schemes dwarfs the federal government wage that he routinely reminds folks that he donates. Since 2001, American presidents have made a wage of $400,000 a 12 months. In order that’s concerning the amount of cash Trump says he selflessly donates. However since turning into president in January, Trump and his household have made billions from their crypto companies, at the least on paper.
Earlier this month, the Trump household’s newest enterprise, World Liberty Monetary — which was co-founded by Trump’s three sons and lists Trump himself as “co-founder emeritus” — opened buying and selling on its crypto token, $WLFI. Beforehand, folks purchased WLFI tokens privately by World Liberty Monetary, however weren’t in a position to commerce them. Now, it’s all public, and WLFI tokens might be purchased and bought on the open market. This newest launch alone has expanded the Trump household’s web value by as a lot as $5 billion, based on the Wall Road Journal. Whereas these features solely exist on paper for now, for the reason that Trumps can’t promote their tokens but, it’s a window into simply how a lot cash the presidency is producing for the Trump household.
However that’s not all. The meme cash they launched within the days earlier than Trump’s inauguration — $TRUMP and $MELANIA — have generated a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in income, based on the New Yorker.
It’s laborious to pin down an actual quantity relating to how a lot cash the president and his household have produced from these types of schemes, largely as a result of the Trumps aren’t precisely recognized for transparency into their funds. Furthermore, a lot of the wealth they’ve generated stays unrealized, since they haven’t bought all of their belongings. However whereas the Trump household’s numerous companies — from finance to Trump-branded merchandise to his media firm — have hauled in a whole bunch of hundreds of thousands of {dollars}, all of these ventures pale compared to the household’s crypto earnings.
What’s clear is that Trump and his household have leveraged the presidency to attract traders to their cryptocurrencies and drastically expanded their collective wealth because of this. Since turning into president, Trump himself has greater than doubled his web value, from an estimated $2.3 billion in 2024 to greater than $5 billion this 12 months, based on Forbes.
What makes this all of the extra alarming is simply how nakedly corrupt these crypto investments are. Similar to when Trump made Fact Social a publicly traded firm, the Trump household’s crypto cash permit anybody to speculate cash to spice up Trump’s wealth. And what may draw folks to do this isn’t just their love or admiration for the president, however the potential alternative to curry favor with him and his administration. Actually, earlier this 12 months, Trump hosted a dinner at his Virginia golf membership for the highest traders in his $TRUMP coin. To place it extra plainly, that wasn’t some sort of elite political fundraiser, the place wealthy donors collect to fill a marketing campaign fund for the subsequent election. Trump was as a substitute actively luring folks to closely spend money on his personal enterprise — to complement him personally — by promising traders a possibility to realize entry to the president of the USA.
So whereas Trump likes to tout his donations — significantly his paycheck giveaways — as proof of his generosity, that’s only for present. In the long run, how far more overtly corrupt might the president be than internet hosting a non-public dinner for his prime traders? With Trump, it’s not possible to know the reply, as a result of he appears to maintain discovering extra blatant methods to show the presidency right into a cash seize.
