Published on: September 30, 2026 at 1:01 pm
How have U.S. President Donald Trump and his family profited from his presidency? There are many ways:
- First, there’s $TRUMP, a.k.a. TrumpCoin, the official Trump-branded cryptocurrency, from which he personally made $635 million in royalties and licensing fees, even though the coin’s public market value subsequently tanked by more than 95%. News outlets reported that his total cryptocurrency-related income surpassed $1.4 billion in 2025 alone.
- In addition, his son Donald Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, 1789 Capital, has come under intense congressional scrutiny following revelations that multiple companies within its investment portfolio have secured more than $1.6 billion in federal contracts and grants. For example, rare-earth startup Vulcan Elements acquired a $620 million Pentagon loan from the Department of Defense’s Office of Strategic Capital alongside a $50 million Commerce Department grant shortly after receiving backing from 1789 Capital. There’s an additional $1 billion in federal funds reportedly pending for other startups in the venture capital firm’s portfolio.
- As the dominant shareholder of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), President Trump holds a 52% controlling stake in the parent company of the social media platform Truth Social, which is valued at roughly $1 billion. The company is now valued well below its peak valuation of around $10 billion just before the 2024 U.S. presidential election, as Truth Social has been reporting steep net losses since. Moving away from direct advertising and traditional salaries, Donald Trump’s social media site is shifting toward institutional monetization to capitalize on his online presence, despite the platform operating in red. TMTG leverages Trump’s market-moving commentary through “Truth API” data feeds sold to financial services companies for up to $100,000 per month.
According to Academy of Management Scholar Jeffrey Sonnenfeld of the Yale School of Management, who moderated the panel “The Framers of 1776 vs. The Nation’s Leadership In 2026; Is the Vision Now Vivid or Blurred?” at the 2026 AOM Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, before Trump was banned from Twitter due to his alleged incitement of violence related to the January 6th insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, he used the platform to reach his base without relying on traditional media such as TV and newspapers. Sonnenfeld has coauthored the book Trump’s Ten Commandments: Strategic Lessons from the Trump Leadership Toolbox with Steven Tian, also of Yale.
- Trump’s commercial licensing operations have reached unprecedented heights during his second term, merging political branding with personal e-commerce to generate millions of dollars in direct royalties. Operating through opaque licensing agreements with third-party LLCs, these ventures bypass traditional political campaign contribution limits, channeling revenue directly to the president’s personal trust.
- The Trump-branded product portfolio includes luxury watches retailing up to $100,000, “Fight Fight Fight” gold sneakers priced up to $499, collectible guitars up to $11,500, and $99 digital-trading-card NFTs. Other Trump-branded consumer items include $60 Bibles, with autographed editions costing up to $1,000, a $499 T1 Trump Mobile gold smartphone, $99 coffee table books, and MAGA campaign apparel.
“Trump loved Twitter, now X, and so he launched Truth Social, which he uses to spin political narratives and shill for the products bearing his name,” Sonnenfeld said. “We have seen that Trump, using his various gimmicks, has made $6.5 billion while in office and $3.5 billion in ventures, where his own investors themselves lost $2 billion, which is pretty horrifying, as he is violating all the emoluments clauses and conflicts of interest and things like that, and receiving these gifts of a near billion-dollar plane from foreign powers like Qatar, which he’s going to have for his own use afterward.
“The social media platform Truth Social is just another one of those outlets that he manipulates to his own benefit, where he’s making money as a scammer—it shows how he makes money,” he said. “It’s ‘heads I win, tails you lose’—he’s always profiting off of the grift of the day, whether it’s Bibles or running shoes or hotels and is now using Truth Social to give out front-running information that would be illegal based on the SEC Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure)—financial disclosures are illegal if you selectively give out information to manipulate markets.
“He’s selling it to hedge-fund pals so they know what his decisions are going to be in advance, so they can trade on that information. We’ve never seen anything like this. To call it corruption is a gross understatement.”
