Trump has amassed staggering wealth in 'most openly corrupt' presidency

# Trump has amassed staggering wealth in 'most openly corrupt' presidency

Peter Stone in Washington, Analysis, Aug 13, 2026

Ethics experts and Democrats express alarm as Trump uses office to grow his personal fortune to 'unprecedented' level

Donald Trump's use of his second presidency to grow his personal fortune has alarmed legal and ethics experts and congressional Democrats as he has reaped an "unprecedented" $2.2bn in 2025 revenues by amassing big cryptocurrency holdings, benefiting from wealthy foreign interests, expanding his Truth Social business and more, while federal oversight of his actions has waned.

Trump last year raked in at least $1.4bn from his crypto ventures according to financial disclosure forms he filed in June. Simultaneously, about one million investors in a Trump crypto scheme suffered almost $3.8bn in losses as their volatile crypto holdings tanked in value.

Monetizing his presidency further this summer, Trump's Truth Social media business is pushing a new scheme that offers wealthy buyers special early access to his posts for a fee of $100,000 a month, which top Democrats and public interest groups say pose serious conflict of interest and corruption issues.

Mark Warner, the Democratic senator of Virginia, in July wrote to six major Wall Street financial trade groups urging them to reject a new Truth Social product, dubbed Truth API, that would enrich Trump by giving big investors early looks at Trump's postings. Warner's letter urged that they "not legitimize an arrangement that sells privileged access to market-moving presidential communications, especially for the president's personal financial benefit".

A CNN poll in late July buttressed criticism of Trump's monetizing his second term: the poll revealed that 66% of 1,225 respondents said Trump doesn't put the good of the country over his personal gain and only 34% said he does.

Former federal officials, historians and other experts have raised "corruption" concerns and other red flags as Trump has monetized his presidency for personal gain in ways that far exceed any other president's tenure.

"Trump has figured out a way to monetize the presidency, political power and public policy in ways no other president has achieved," Princeton historian Julian Zelizer told the Guardian. "In the first term, he created the thinnest of firewalls between his business and policy. In the second term, he didn't put up any firewall and smashed all guardrails that existed.

"The precedent is dangerous in general, as we are moving to a virtually unregulated era where there will be unending opportunities for corruption."

"Trump has openly rejected restraints on presidential conflicts of interests and is using the powers of the presidency, both real and imagined, to financially benefit his and his family's business interests on an unprecedented level," said Larry Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission who now teaches law at American University. "In just the first year of this term, he reported his business holdings earned over $2bn."

Noble added: "While Trump's second term is less than half over, it already looks like the most openly corrupt administration in our history.

"Whether you're a foreign country, a company or an individual who wants the government to approve a business deal, stop an investigation or just be a friend when you need a favor, the message is that this is a pay to play administration."

"I think the biggest concern is not simply that the president is making money from his office, but the potential for corruption," said Barbara McQuade, a former federal prosecutor for eastern Michigan who now teaches at the University of Michigan law school.

Since his second term began, Trump has dismissed concerns about conflicts of interests, boasting to the New York Times in January that he has a "very honest family" and that he had never taken his presidential salary.

Despite Trump's protestations, Trump's crypto earnings in 2025 are eye-popping – especially in contrast to the dismal returns for many investors and given Trump's warnings in 2021 that crypto was a "scam", and a "disaster waiting to happen". Trump's strong embrace of crypto came after the industry poured millions of dollars into his 2024 campaign, and he pledged to make the US "the crypto capital of the world" with less regulation.

For instance, the crypto venture World Liberty Financial, which Trump and his sons launched in the fall of 2024 with the family of Steve Witkoff, who now is Trump's special Middle East envoy, brought in $799m in 2025 for Trump, according to public filings.

Last year too, Trump earned another $636m from his novelty memecoin $Trump which Trump began marketing just days before his inauguration in 2025.

The Democratic senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Adam Schiff of California this year wrote a tough letter to the Trump-allied memecoin marketing firm Fight Fight Fight as Trump was poised to host an April event for buyers of $Trump at Mar-a-Lago similar to one Trump hosted at his Virginia golf club last year.

"We have previously raised concerns with President Trump's willingness to use the presidency for personal profit," the lawmakers noted in their letter to the marketing firm for $Trump.

The letter stressed that "not all $TRUMP holders have benefited from their investment", and cited a February industry report that $TRUMP – and the first lady's memecoin, $MELANIA – "erased an estimated $4.3 billion in retail wealth in recent months, with 2 million holders currently underwater". In stark contrast, the same report found that 45 other crypto wallets that were early holders of $Trump coins had profited by about $1.2bn.

After Trump's memecoin bash in 2025 prompted conflict of interest questions and charges of corruption, the press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said Trump was "abiding by all conflict-of-interest laws that are applicable to the president".

The Cornell economist Eswar Prasad faults the Trump administration's regulatory laxness for some of the scandals and legal headaches that have plagued the crypto industry.

"The Trump administration has clearly shifted the priorities and focus of the government's regulatory apparatus to look past any and all sins of the crypto industry, thereby directly benefiting the Trump family's financial interests," Prasad said.

Similarly, watchdog groups are sharply critical of Truth Social's offer to sell Wall Street advance looks at Trump's Truth Social posts for $100,000 per month.

"Using the presidency to channel non-public information to his media company's major institutional customers for profit is not simply Trump's newest act in self-dealing," said Virginia Canter, the chief counsel for ethics and anti-corruption with Democracy Defenders Action.

Trump Media & Technology, the company behind the Truth Social platform, on 10 August announced it lost a whopping $238m in the three months through June as it branched out into new businesses including crypto.

In a July letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Senators Schiff and Warren called the new Truth Social deal "an outrageous abuse of the President's office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets, while enriching Wall Street and other wealthy insiders".

Looking forward, McQuade urged "new rules and new consequences to protect the public from a president willing to put his own financial benefit ahead of the public interest".