President Trump has made more money while in office than most of us can even conceive of. In 2025, he took in more than $2.2 billion, according to financial disclosures that we’ve been parsing here at The New York Times.
Democrats intend to make a big deal of this in the midterm elections, by accusing Trump of corruptly using his office to enrich himself as consumer prices rise and inequality widens. A CNN poll released today found that nearly two-thirds of Americans thought Trump had gone too far in pursuing his personal business interests while president.
Trump is betting that the Democratic argument won’t land, and he’s drawing from his own experience. In January, he told several of my colleagues covering the White House that he “got no credit” for his family’s decision not to conduct new business abroad during his first term. Adjusting for inflation, he made $594 million during his first full year in office (a measly sum, compared with 2025).
“I found out that nobody cared,” he said.
We’re going to hear a lot about this as Democrats test his theory. Today, we’ll dig into the facts about how the president made his money. I invited my colleague Andrea Fuller, a data reporter, to take us through the numbers.
Andrea, thank you so much for joining me today. Let’s start with the big takeaway here. What is this zippy GIF telling us? What did you and our colleagues learn about Trump’s wealth?
The $2.2 billion that President Trump made last year is more than triple the revenue he reported during the first year of his first term.
That’s new revenue — not his net worth. Unfortunately, Trump’s financial disclosures don’t tell us with much precision how much money he’s worth. But the fact that a president generated billions in revenue while occupying the Oval Office is unheard of.
You are an investigative reporter. How deep did you have to dig to find this number? To put it another way — is this a figure Trump has kept close to the vest, or is it something he has been open about?
It was actually out in the open. Many aspects of Trump’s wealth, like his tax returns, have been secret. But Trump, like presidents before him, is required to file a form with the Office of Government Ethics each year, revealing how much money he made from business ventures.
The downside is that it comes in a 900-page document that most people wouldn’t want to sit down and read. Fortunately, with the help of computer programming, I was able to extract that data and put it into a spreadsheet I could analyze.
Tell us more about what you found. Were there any surprises buried in all that data?
The exact magnitude of the money he had made last year was a mystery until now. For example, we previously reported that he and his associates made at least $320 million from his memecoin. The new documents told us that he actually took in a whopping $636 million. (A memecoin is technically cryptocurrency but more like a collectible — you can’t usually spend it.)
These documents also told us for the first time how much money he made from a deal between his family’s crypto company, World Liberty Financial, and a firm tied to the government of the United Arab Emirates. (That was more than $200 million.)
Interestingly, most of the revenue growth came from new ventures like crypto. It was surprising that the money he made from his domestic golf and real estate businesses had risen by only about 4 percent since 2017, once you accounted for inflation. For someone who has always been thought of as a real estate mogul, that income is now dwarfed by the money he’s making from crypto deals.
Let’s talk about that deal with the U.A.E. How unusual is that? Did you find other, similar examples? And is this allowed?
The Trump Organization has also announced real estate deals in places like Qatar and Saudi Arabia that have complex financial and military relationships with the U.S., especially in light of the war with Iran. That’s certainly unusual. My colleague Eric Lipton previously wrote about how George W. Bush sold his stake in the Texas Rangers and Jimmy Carter turned over the operation of his peanut farm to an independent trustee before taking office.
But whether it’s legal is another question. I’ve received emails from readers arguing that Trump is violating the provision in the Constitution that prevents public officials from receiving foreign gifts. But the courts haven’t fully weighed in.
Legal consequences are one thing. The ballot box is another. We know this smashes norms set by other presidents. Do we know if voters care?
Some Democrats have certainly been making it a campaign issue. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Georgia Democrat, has been labeling this “the most corrupt administration of all time.” James Talarico, a Democrat running for Senate in Texas, has promised anti-corruption legislation.
But here’s the rub: For decades, a majority of Americans have said there is widespread government corruption. And corruption allegations have long dogged both parties — House Republicans released an entire report on how the Biden family made millions from foreign entities.
There have been some signs, however, that voters are paying closer attention in light of the billions Trump made last year. The Times has reported that while only a small sliver of voters view corruption as the No. 1 issue, it’s a top-three issue for more than a third of them. That’s a spike from a decade ago.
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