Donald Trump has financial stake in the nuclear industry he is championing

President Donald Trump could stand to profit from his administration's unprecedented investments into the nuclear energy industry.

Trump has invested between $6.4 million and $19.45 million in U.S. nuclear technology companies or utility companies that operate nuclear reactors, according to a NOTUS review of his 2025 personal financial disclosure. Trump's holdings could reap significant gains as his administration seeks to rapidly expand the nuclear industry.

The president owns between $2.7 million and $11.5 million in Duke Energy, which operates 11 nuclear units across North and South Carolina. The president holds anywhere from $667,000 to $1.4 million in Constellation Energy, the largest nuclear operator in the U.S., and purchased as much as $1.1 million of the company's stock in 2025. Federal elected officials are only required to report their assets in broad ranges.

Trump purchased between $4.8 million and $12.9 million in energy stock last year as the administration launched its ambitious policy and funding campaign to scale the country's limited nuclear power facilities into the next big clean energy source.

His stakes in these companies represent a sliver of his vast investment portfolio, which totals at least $858 million, according to his 927-page financial disclosure. Trump's broad exposure to the U.S. economy leaves few, if any, sectors his policies wouldn't touch, raising concerns among ethics experts about how the president profits off his administration's work.

The Trump administration's latest deal would allow U.S. energy companies to develop nuclear facilities in Saudi Arabia for civil use. Trump later made the deal contingent on the U.S. ally establishing diplomatic relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords. The deal still needs to win congressional approval, but it raises ethics concerns. In December, Trump Media & Technology Group announced a $6 billion merger with the Taiwanese nuclear fusion company TAE Technologies, which plans to complete the world's first utility-scale fusion power plant by 2031, despite hundreds of millions of dollars in losses by TMTG this year.

"We are at a point now that whenever the president announces a major official policy with a foreign government, a reasonable question arises of what's in it for him, and that knee-jerk reaction to ask if there's self-dealing shows how far we have come with lack of trust in government," said Kedric Payne, the senior director of ethics at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.

Within three weeks of signing the executive orders, Trump acquired between $114,000 and $485,000 of stock in energy companies with nuclear facilities, including several five-figure purchases on the same day, the disclosure shows.

White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said Trump's assets are "held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions." Trump has previously said that he does not communicate with the institutions in charge of his money.

"President Trump has unleashed a nuclear energy renaissance and reignited meaningful progress in America's nuclear power production," Rogers said in a statement to NOTUS. "The media's continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and only deepen the public's distrust in what they read."

The Trump Organization and the utility companies did not respond to NOTUS' requests for comment.

Note to readers - This story was reported and published by NOTUS and was shared with The Salt Lake Tribune as part of a partnership.