Donald Trump made himself richer by $1.4 billion after becoming President for second term, says report: Read details
Donald Trump has unabashedly been a megalomaniac, particularly after his second inauguration as the US President. After weaponising tariffs to arm-twist countries into signing pro-US trade deals, Trump claimed that America is becoming richer under his leadership, even as, in reality, it is American consumers paying nearly all of the price for Trump’s tariff war. An editorial review published by the New York Times on 20th January 2026, indicates that Trump, who gave the Make America Great Again slogan, is actually working avariciously on a ‘Make Trump Richer’ agenda, having amassed around $1.4 billion. The NYT report titled “How Trump Has Used the Presidency to Make at Least $1.4 Billion” was published on 20th January, marking the first anniversary of Trump’s second presidential term. As per the report, Donald Trump has pocketed at least $1,408,500,000 since his January 2025 return to the White House, through an unprecedented exploitation of the office for his personal enrichment. The figure NYT mentioned in its review is based on an analysis of various news reports. The report suggests that the $1.4 billion is a conservative underestimate due to undisclosed profits and ongoing revenue streams. This amount is equivalent to 16,822 times the US household income of $83,730. As per the NYT, Donald Trump “poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency,” allowing people, corporations, and foreign nations to funnel money into his personal pockets in exchange for US government favours. Unlike Harry Truman, who refused to commercialise his service, President Trump has qualms in indulging in massive moneymaking while in office. From overseas licensing deals, Amazon documentary payment, to cryptocurrency ventures, and more: Trump’s ‘Make America Rich Again’ dream turns out to be ‘Make Trump Rich Again’ reality Donald Trump pocketed at least $23 million from over 20 Trump-branded projects worldwide, including a hotel in Oman, an office tower in India, and a golf course in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These projects often require foreign government approvals, and at times, the Trump administration extended policy favours for involved countries. In August 2025, the Trump administration imposed 46% tariffs on Vietnam, which depends heavily on the US for its exports. However, the tariff was lowered 20%, hardly a month later. This came after the Trump Organisation broke ground for a $1.5 billion golf complex in Hanoi. The Vietnamese officials ignored their own laws to fast-track the Trump family’s project. During the groundbreaking ceremony, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh admitted that Eric Trump motivated him expedite the golf course project. It breezed through expedited permissions while, interestingly, Vietnam was negotiating a significant trade deal with Washington. The Vietnamese farmers who have been living and working on the land were instructed to leave their land with only $3,200 and provisions for rice in exchange. The Trump family has also made over $90.5 million in total from companies like X, Meta, YouTube, Paramount, and ABC News. Trump raked in huge amounts from lawsuits he pursued from the Oval Office. Paramount paid $16 million over an alleged distorted edit of a 2024 Kamala Harris interview, which reportedly followed standard journalistic practice. Just three weeks later, the Federal Communications Commission “approved an $8 billion merger with Skydance,” the NYT reported. In September 2025, YouTube agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a lawsuit over the suspension of Donald Trump’s channel over policy violation. Trump brought up a lawsuit against the Google subsidiary, accusing it of wrongly suspending his channel after the January 6 Capitol Hill attack. Trump had alleged that YouTube had “accumulated an unprecedented concentration of power, market share, and ability to dictate our nation’s public discourse” Similarly, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, had settled a lawsuit with Trump in January 2025, after agreeing to pay $25 million. This amount went to Trump’s presidential library fund, while the $22 million from the YouTube lawsuit settlement went to restoration and preservation of the National Mall and supporting construction of the White House ballroom. The ballroom’s estimated cost was reported to be around $200 million. The Trump family made around $28 million from Amazon for the rights to a documentary titled “Melania”, about the President’s wife, Melania Trump. This amount exceeded the next highest bidder and earlier similar deals, apparently linked to Amazon’s interest in antitrust regulations, defence contracts, and Jeff Bezos’s space company. In May 2025, President Trump sparked controversy after agreeing to receive a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft, known as the ‘flying palace’, from the Qatar royal family as a ‘gift’. At home, Trump faced flak for accepting a luxurious gift from a foreign government. However, Trump defende
Donald Trump has unabashedly been a megalomaniac, particularly after his second inauguration as the US President. After weaponising tariffs to arm-twist countries into signing pro-US trade deals, Trump claimed that America is becoming richer under his leadership, even as, in reality, it is American consumers paying nearly all of the price for Trump’s tariff war. An editorial review published by the New York Times on 20th January 2026, indicates that Trump, who gave the Make America Great Again slogan, is actually working avariciously on a ‘Make Trump Richer’ agenda, having amassed around $1.4 billion.
The NYT report titled “How Trump Has Used the Presidency to Make at Least $1.4 Billion” was published on 20th January, marking the first anniversary of Trump’s second presidential term. As per the report, Donald Trump has pocketed at least $1,408,500,000 since his January 2025 return to the White House, through an unprecedented exploitation of the office for his personal enrichment.
The figure NYT mentioned in its review is based on an analysis of various news reports. The report suggests that the $1.4 billion is a conservative underestimate due to undisclosed profits and ongoing revenue streams. This amount is equivalent to 16,822 times the US household income of $83,730.
As per the NYT, Donald Trump “poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency,” allowing people, corporations, and foreign nations to funnel money into his personal pockets in exchange for US government favours. Unlike Harry Truman, who refused to commercialise his service, President Trump has qualms in indulging in massive moneymaking while in office.
From overseas licensing deals, Amazon documentary payment, to cryptocurrency ventures, and more: Trump’s ‘Make America Rich Again’ dream turns out to be ‘Make Trump Rich Again’ reality
Donald Trump pocketed at least $23 million from over 20 Trump-branded projects worldwide, including a hotel in Oman, an office tower in India, and a golf course in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. These projects often require foreign government approvals, and at times, the Trump administration extended policy favours for involved countries.
In August 2025, the Trump administration imposed 46% tariffs on Vietnam, which depends heavily on the US for its exports. However, the tariff was lowered 20%, hardly a month later. This came after the Trump Organisation broke ground for a $1.5 billion golf complex in Hanoi. The Vietnamese officials ignored their own laws to fast-track the Trump family’s project.
During the groundbreaking ceremony, Vietnamese Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh admitted that Eric Trump motivated him expedite the golf course project. It breezed through expedited permissions while, interestingly, Vietnam was negotiating a significant trade deal with Washington. The Vietnamese farmers who have been living and working on the land were instructed to leave their land with only $3,200 and provisions for rice in exchange.
The Trump family has also made over $90.5 million in total from companies like X, Meta, YouTube, Paramount, and ABC News. Trump raked in huge amounts from lawsuits he pursued from the Oval Office. Paramount paid $16 million over an alleged distorted edit of a 2024 Kamala Harris interview, which reportedly followed standard journalistic practice. Just three weeks later, the Federal Communications Commission “approved an $8 billion merger with Skydance,” the NYT reported.
In September 2025, YouTube agreed to pay $24.5m to settle a lawsuit over the suspension of Donald Trump’s channel over policy violation. Trump brought up a lawsuit against the Google subsidiary, accusing it of wrongly suspending his channel after the January 6 Capitol Hill attack. Trump had alleged that YouTube had “accumulated an unprecedented concentration of power, market share, and ability to dictate our nation’s public discourse”
Similarly, Facebook’s parent company, Meta, had settled a lawsuit with Trump in January 2025, after agreeing to pay $25 million. This amount went to Trump’s presidential library fund, while the $22 million from the YouTube lawsuit settlement went to restoration and preservation of the National Mall and supporting construction of the White House ballroom. The ballroom’s estimated cost was reported to be around $200 million.
The Trump family made around $28 million from Amazon for the rights to a documentary titled “Melania”, about the President’s wife, Melania Trump. This amount exceeded the next highest bidder and earlier similar deals, apparently linked to Amazon’s interest in antitrust regulations, defence contracts, and Jeff Bezos’s space company.
In May 2025, President Trump sparked controversy after agreeing to receive a $400 million luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft, known as the ‘flying palace’, from the Qatar royal family as a ‘gift’. At home, Trump faced flak for accepting a luxurious gift from a foreign government. However, Trump defended his decision back then, saying that the US defended Qatar for many years, and that this is a gift to the United States Air Force/Department of Defence and not to him.
While the luxury aircraft was said to be used as a secondary Air Force One during Trump’s presidency, Trump has planned to retain it afterwards and transfer it to his library.
Besides, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency ventures have been the largest source of money for them. The Trump family have pocketed over $867 million via various cryptocurrencies, primarily from the family-linked World Liberty Financial (WLFI). These allow anonymous purchases by US and foreign investors, making pathways for influence. The UAE-backed firm announced a $2 billion investment in a Trump-linked company right after the US approved UAE access to advanced semiconductor chips.
In September 2025, World Liberty Financial launched a new digital currency called WLFI. Within hours of trading, the token had already created paper wealth worth as much as $5 billion for the president’s family. The Trumps collectively own just under a quarter of all WLFI tokens, instantly making it their single most valuable asset, even bigger than the family’s decades-old real estate empire.
Interestingly, US President Donald Trump is listed as s a “Co-Founder Emeritus” of World Liberty, while his three sons are co-founders and active faces of the venture.
The Trump family’s crypto fortune was not merely a display of business acumen and timing, but also tied closely to legislation and policy decisions that he himself has pushed from the White House. In August 2025, Trump signed an executive order that could funnel trillions of dollars from American retirement accounts into cryptocurrencies and other alternative assets. The order allowed fund managers to include crypto, private equity, and even real estate investments in 401(k) retirement plans, something that wasn’t previously allowed.
This opened the door to a $12 trillion market of retirement funds, giving a massive potential boost to crypto projects like WLFI. For Trump, who is now both a policymaker and a crypto entrepreneur, the move could significantly enrich his own ventures.
Such is the US President’s avarice that in his second term, Trump ended up coddling the same Islamic terror-sponsoring Pakistan that he during his first presidential tenure despised and criticised for sucking billions from the US in the name of counterterrorism in Afghanistan. Rewarding a defeated in conflict against India and victorious in Trump sycophancy, Pakistan, with a massive crypto deal, the Trump-family-linked crypto venture World Liberty Financial signed a Rs 17,000 crore cryptocurrency deal with Pakistan. This move reinforced the perception that Trump’s newfound affection for Islamabad has less to do with strategy and more to do with private business interests.
Not to forget, the $1.4 billion figure is a lower estimate, with probable additional hundreds of millions from crypto and other unaccounted elements. The NYT report says that Trump’s action not only raises concerns over corruption, but also risks leading to a “cynical spiral” where laws are used as tools for the wealthy.
Clearly, Trump is blending political power and business acumen to profit from policymaking. Donald Trump has turned the presidency into a personal revenue accelerator. Trump Organisation’s 17-fold income surge in 2025 alone raised concerns over alleged corruption and blurring of the lines between public duty and private gains.
