The business of the presidency: how Trump and his family profit from the office

By his own financial disclosure, Donald Trump took in at least $2.2 billion in 2025, more than three times as much as the year before. More than half came from crypto ventures that did not exist before his re-election. Many of the buyers wanted something from the US government, and got it. Whether that is a coincidence cannot be proven. Here is what can be documented.

Res.Publica, 7 November 2026. All figures are sourced at the end of the article.

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The numbers

Every US president has to disclose his income once a year to the Office of Government Ethics. For 2024, Trump reported a little over $600 million, including $57 million from crypto. For 2025, his first year back in office, analyses by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal put the figure at no less than $2.2 billion. Around $1.2 billion of that came from two sources: World Liberty Financial, the family’s crypto firm, and licensing fees for the $TRUMP meme coin, which alone brought in $635 million.

Reuters took a closer look at the Trump Organization. In the first half of 2024, the family business took in $51 million. In the first half of 2025, it was $864 million, seventeen times as much. $802 million of that came from crypto. Golf courses, hotels and licensing barely mattered anymore.

This is not paper wealth. It is money that was actually paid. The distinction matters because wealth estimates swing. Forbes put Trump at $7.3 billion in September 2025 and at $7.0 billion a year later, after $TRUMP and Trump Media shares slumped. The income is unaffected by that.

Who pays

Crypto tokens have one peculiarity: you cannot see who buys them. What can still be reconstructed shows where the money comes from.

The Emirates’ national security adviser. On 16 January 2025, four days before the inauguration, a company called Aryam Investment 1 paid $500 million for 49 percent of World Liberty Financial. Behind it is Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, national security adviser of the United Arab Emirates and brother of its president. Eric Trump signed the deal. According to the Wall Street Journal, $187 million went to Trump family entities and at least $31 million to entities of the family of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy and a World Liberty co-founder. The deal only became public a year later, through the Journal.

An Abu Dhabi state fund and Binance. On 1 May 2025, MGX, another fund chaired by Tahnoon, announced a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance, paid in USD1. That is World Liberty’s stablecoin. For a stablecoin issuer this is lucrative: it parks the deposits in US Treasuries and keeps the interest.

Justin Sun. The Chinese-born crypto entrepreneur bought $75 million worth of World Liberty tokens and was the largest holder of $TRUMP. The SEC had been suing his companies since 2023. In February 2025, the case was put on hold.

Buyers abroad. According to the analytics firm Nansen, 36 of the 50 largest World Liberty wallets, worth $804 million combined, very likely belonged to buyers outside the US. At the May 2025 dinner for the 220 largest $TRUMP holders, a Bloomberg analysis found that most guests came from abroad. Small investors fared differently: by May 2025, Chainalysis data showed 58 wallets had made more than $10 million each, while around 764,000 wallets had lost money.

What happened next

On its own, each of these purchases is just a deal. It becomes striking when you put it next to what the government decided in the same months.

Two weeks after the MGX deal, on 15 May 2025, Trump announced during his Gulf tour an agreement allowing the Emirates to import up to 500,000 of Nvidia’s most advanced AI chips every year. Washington had long held back such exports over fears the technology could reach China. In November 2025, the administration approved shipments to G42, a company chaired by Tahnoon.

At the end of May 2025, the SEC dropped its case against Binance. In October 2025, Trump pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who had pleaded guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money-laundering law. Two weeks later, Trump told CBS: “I don’t know who he is.” In August 2026, the banking regulator OCC granted World Liberty’s trust bank a preliminary charter.

The White House, World Liberty and Binance deny any connection. There are also policy reasons for the chip exports: the Emirates have pledged $1.4 trillion in US investment, and Washington wants to keep them from buying Chinese. There is no evidence that money was traded for decisions. There is a series of coincidences that together form a pattern.

A plane from Qatar, a golf course in Vietnam

On 30 April 2025, the Trump Organization announced a golf resort north of Doha. The partners are the Saudi firm Dar Global and Qatari Diar, a company owned by the Qatari state. In January, the company had promised not to make new deals with foreign governments. Asked about it, it said its contract was only with Dar Global.

Three weeks later, on 21 May 2025, the Pentagon accepted a Boeing 747-8 from Qatar’s ruling family, worth around $400 million. It has been refitted as Air Force One at taxpayers’ expense; the cost has not been disclosed. After his term, the plane is to go to Trump’s presidential library. The US Constitution bars officeholders from accepting gifts from foreign states without the consent of Congress. Congress was not asked. The administration argues the plane is a gift to the Air Force, not to Trump.

On that same 21 May, Vietnam’s prime minister Pham Minh Chinh broke ground with Eric Trump on a $1.5 billion golf resort in Hung Yen province. Approval was fast-tracked, in the middle of talks over Trump’s tariffs on Vietnam. The Trump Organization is not investing anything itself. It gets a $5 million licensing fee and will run the course. Farmers whose fields were taken for it received, according to Reuters, as little as $3,200 plus rice.

In total, the Trump Organization has announced 13 new projects abroad since the re-election, according to the ethics watchdog CREW, including in Saudi Arabia, India, Qatar, Romania and South Korea. In Trump’s first term, the company had barred itself from new foreign deals.

The family

Jared Kushner. Six months after Trump’s first term ended, his son-in-law’s fund, Affinity Partners, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund. According to the New York Times, a screening panel of the fund had advised against it. By 2024, Affinity had collected about $157 million in management fees, $87 million of it from Saudi Arabia, without returning a profit to investors. Today Kushner is again negotiating in the Middle East for the US government, and according to congressional figures his fund now manages more than $6 billion, including money from Qatar and the Emirates.

The sons and the Pentagon. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump hold stakes, through investment funds, in more than a dozen companies that sell defense and technology to the government. According to a Washington Post analysis, those companies have won $3.2 billion in direct government contracts since the sons invested. The number sounds bigger than it is: 97 percent went to SpaceX and Anduril, which already had large contracts. The smaller firms are a different story. Vulcan Elements, a 30-person start-up backed by Donald Trump Jr.’s fund, received a $620 million Pentagon loan at the end of 2025. Everyone involved denies that the sons had any influence.

Melania Trump. Amazon paid $40 million for a documentary about the First Lady, more than ever paid for a documentary. According to the Wall Street Journal, $28 million went to Melania Trump; her husband’s disclosure lists $10.7 million. The film grossed $16.7 million worldwide.

Pardons

The president’s pardon power is practically unlimited, and every president has used it in contested cases, most recently Joe Biden for his son. Under Trump, however, the profile of those pardoned has shifted. NBC News analysed individual pardons since Barack Obama. The 88 people and companies Trump pardoned in the first year of his second term owed a combined $298 million in fines and restitution to victims. Under Obama it was $2.5 million, under Biden just under $700,000. More than half the cases were white-collar crimes such as fraud and money laundering.

Some cases have a backstory. Trevor Milton, founder of truck maker Nikola, had been convicted of defrauding investors; he and his wife had given more than $1.8 million to committees backing Trump. The mother of Paul Walczak, convicted of tax crimes, attended a $1 million-per-person fundraising dinner weeks before his pardon. Nursing home executive Joseph Schwartz paid lobbyists $960,000 to push for his pardon, according to the Washington Post.

Is it corruption?

In the criminal sense: not proven. US bribery law requires a provable quid pro quo, and the Supreme Court raised that bar further in McDonnell in 2016. Since 2024, the president has also enjoyed broad immunity for official acts. The federal conflict-of-interest statute explicitly does not apply to the president. No court has found that Trump was bribed or violated the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause. The lawsuits from his first term ended without a ruling on the merits.

At the same time, the watchdogs have been weakened. The Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section, which prosecutes corruption by officials, shrank from more than 30 lawyers to five within a few months, according to Reuters. Investigations of US companies for bribery abroad were suspended by executive order in February 2025.

The White House sees no problem. “President Trump’s assets are in a trust. There are no conflicts of interest,” spokeswoman Lauren Bis said in October. That trust, however, is run by Trump’s children. Other presidents put their assets in a blind trust they knew nothing about.

Nobody knows exactly how much the family has made from the presidency. Estimates range from at least $1.4 billion in the first year (New York Times) to $4.05 billion (The New Yorker). They count different things and cannot be added up. Even the lowest is more than twice Trump’s total income in the 2024 election year.

What comes next

On 22 October 2026, a shareholder of the rival stablecoin issuer Circle filed suit in federal court in Washington. He accuses Trump of violating the Emoluments Clause with the money from the Emirates and is demanding disclosure of all payments from foreign governments. Whether the court will even let the case proceed is open. Earlier suits failed on exactly that question.

Politically, the situation changed this week. The Democrats won both chambers of Congress in the midterms and will take over the committees in January. The incoming chair of the House Oversight Committee, Robert Garcia, has named the Trump family’s business dealings as one of four priorities. Investors are already reacting: the World Liberty token has lost two thirds of its value since the start of the year, and $TRUMP and Trump Media shares hit new lows after the election.

Sources

• InvestmentNews, Trump’s 2026 disclosure, crypto proceeds by entity (1 Jul 2026): https://www.investmentnews.com/alternatives/trump-crypto-ventures-generated-more-than-12-billion-in-disclosed-proceeds/267242
• The Block, 2026 disclosure (30 Jun 2026): https://www.theblock.co/news/regulation/2026-06-30-president-trump-financial-disclosures-hundreds-millions-crypto-related-income-406782
• Slate, NYT and WSJ analyses, at least $2.2 billion (1 Jul 2026): https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2026/07/donald-trump-corruption-income.html
• AP via Anchorage Daily News, disclosure for 2024 (14 Jun 2025): https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2025/06/14/trump-reports-over-600-million-in-income-in-latest-financial-disclosure
• Coinspeaker on the Reuters analysis of the Trump Organization (28 Oct 2025): https://coinspeaker.com/trump-organization-income-soars-17-fold-on-global-crypto-token-sales-push/amp
• Forbes, Forbes 400 2026 (15 Sep 2026): https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2026/09/15/the-2026-forbes-400-list-of-wealthiest-americans-facts-and-figures/
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• Malay Mail (Reuters), UAE chip agreement (15 May 2025): https://www.malaymail.com/news/money/2025/05/15/uae-to-import-500000-nvidia-chips-yearly-under-us-deal-poised-to-become-ai-superpower/176810
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• Washington Times, pardon of Changpeng Zhao (23 Oct 2025): https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/oct/23/trump-pardons-changpeng-zhao-founded-one-worlds-largest-crypto/
• FactCheck.org, Trump’s claims about the Zhao pardon (November 2025): https://www.factcheck.org/2025/11/addressing-trumps-claims-about-the-pardon-of-binance-founder
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• CNBC via NBC Miami, who attended the $TRUMP dinner: https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/business/money-report/trump-meme-coin-dinner-likely-to-include-mostly-non-americans-based-on-top-trump-holders/3617229/
• CNBC via NBC New York, 58 winners and 764,000 losers on $TRUMP: https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/business/money-report/58-crypto-wallets-have-made-millions-on-trumps-meme-coin-764000-have-lost-money-data-shows/6253512/
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• Fortune (AP), status of the refit (2 May 2026): https://fortune.com/2026/05/02/new-air-force-one-donated-by-qatar-to-trump/
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• Reuters via BNN Bloomberg, compensation for farmers in Vietnam (11 Aug 2025): https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/2025/08/11/fistful-of-dollars-and-rice-for-vietnam-farmers-displaced-for-us15-billion-trump-golf-club/
• CREW, 13 new foreign developments (24 Sep 2026): https://www.citizensforethics.org/reports-investigations/crew-reports/the-trump-organization-has-announced-13-foreign-developments-since-trump-won-back-the-presidency/
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• Wikipedia, Affinity Partners (overview with individual sources): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affinity_Partners
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• Truthout, after the Financial Times, Pentagon loan to Vulcan Elements (4 Dec 2025): https://truthout.org/articles/trump-jr-backed-company-receives-620-million-pentagon-loan/
• Wikipedia, Melania (film), with sources on price and earnings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melania_(film)
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• House Judiciary Democrats, pardons and donations (17 Jun 2025): https://democrats-judiciary.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/new-judiciary-democrats-analysis-reveals-trump-s-corrupt-pardon-spree-cheated-crime-victims-of-13-billion
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• New York Times editorial, at least $1.4 billion (20 Jan 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2026/01/20/opinion/editorials/trump-wealth-crypto-graft.html
• The New Yorker, David D. Kirkpatrick, $4.05 billion: https://www.newyorker.com/news/a-reporter-at-large/trumps-profiteering-hits-four-billion-dollars
• House Oversight Democrats, crypto report (20 Jan 2026): https://oversightdemocrats.house.gov/news/press-releases/ranking-member-robert-garcia-releases-damning-new-report-highlighting-trump-family-corruption-launches-trump-digital-grift-tracker
• Center for American Progress, Trump’s Take (as of 8 Oct 2026): https://www.americanprogress.org/feature/trumps-take/
• Spectrum News, Emoluments Clause lawsuit (22 Oct 2026): https://spectrumlocalnews.com/us/snplus/politics/2026/10/22/circle-crypto-trump-lawsuit-foreign-emoluments
• CoinDesk, World Liberty slide and buyback (6 Nov 2026): https://www.coindesk.com/business/2026/11/06/trump-backed-world-liberty-financial-plans-token-buyback-after-66-year-to-date-slide