The scale of wealth accumulation by the first family of the United States is unprecedented in American history.
Written by: John Cassidy
Translated by: Saoirse, Foresight News
As the anniversary of Donald Trump's return to the White House approaches, keeping up with the pace at which his family is capitalizing on the opportunity has become a daunting challenge. It seems that new deals or revelations surface every week. Since the Trump family and many of their associated businesses are privately owned, we cannot fully grasp their financial situation. However, by tracking corporate announcements, official documents, and in-depth reports from various media outlets, a clear picture is gradually emerging: the scale of wealth accumulation by the first family of the United States is unprecedented in American history. Previously, other presidential relatives, including Donald Nixon, Billy Carter, and Hunter Biden, have also been involved in questionable business dealings. However, in terms of the scale of funds, geographical coverage, and direct correlation with presidential actions—especially Trump's efforts to make the U.S. the "world capital of cryptocurrency"—this term of the "Trump Organization" is absolutely unprecedented.
Initial Layout
The timeline dates back to September 2024, just two months before the presidential election. At that time, Trump announced that his family would collaborate with old friend and real estate developer Steve Witkoff's family, along with two obscure internet entrepreneurs, Zachary Falkman and Chase Hero, to establish a new cryptocurrency company—World Liberty Financial, with his three sons Eric, Donald Jr., and Barron all participating. Trump stated on social media: "Cryptocurrency is something we must do; whether I like it or not, I have to push it forward." By October, he had clearly dismissed concerns about promoting questionable digital assets to supporters. In promotional copy for the World Liberty Financial token sale, he claimed: "This is your opportunity to help shape the financial future."
According to Reuters, for every dollar raised through token sales by World Liberty Financial, the Trump family could pocket 70 cents. Cryptocurrency media reported that initial demand for the token was weak but attracted a significant buyer: Justin Sun, founder of the Tron cryptocurrency platform and a Chinese billionaire, who invested $30 million. At that time, the U.S. SEC was suing Sun and his company for fraud and other violations, which Sun denied. In a tweet announcing his investment, Sun wrote: "Tron is committed to making America great again and leading innovation. Let's take action!"
After winning the election, Trump continued the practice from his first term: refusing to divest from his businesses and only placing them into a revocable trust. Although the trust is managed by his eldest son Eric and Donald Jr., Trump remains the actual owner of the Trump Organization. The potential conflicts of interest are evident: if policies or actions taken by this re-elected president benefit his family businesses, he and his family can reap financial rewards.
After the election, Donald Jr. further expanded the business landscape—joining the venture capital fund "1789." The fund was co-founded by two conservative financiers, Omid Malik and Charles Bausk, along with conservative hedge fund heiress Rebecca Mercer. According to the New York Post, "1789" has raised substantial funds from Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. The fund's early investments focused on conservative media (including companies under Tucker Carlson), and by the time Donald Jr. joined, the investment scope had expanded to consumer goods, defense, technology, and other sectors.
On January 17, 2025, just three days before Trump's second inauguration, he ventured into the cryptocurrency space again, launching a new meme coin—MELANIA. Unlike World Liberty, which grants holders governance rights, these two tokens are merely meme coins: TRUMP is currently the hottest digital meme coin globally, and this is just the beginning.
Massive Wealth Accumulation
After Trump returned to the White House, global forces rushed to establish good relations with him, and related dynamics followed one after another, many involving cryptocurrency, foreign funds, or both. One of his first actions after taking office was to order various departments to review regulations affecting the digital asset industry and propose "repeals or modifications." In February, the newly led SEC requested the court to suspend the lawsuit against Sun—by this time, Sun's stake in World Liberty Financial had increased to $75 million.
In March, Trump hosted a cryptocurrency summit at the White House (organized by "crypto czar," Silicon Valley venture capitalist David Sacks) and announced plans to establish a U.S. "strategic Bitcoin reserve." Later that month, Eric and Donald Jr. merged their newly established company with Canadian Bitcoin mining firm Hut 8, investing in the new company American Bitcoin. According to the Wall Street Journal, the company's goal is to become the world's largest Bitcoin mining enterprise and establish its own Bitcoin reserves.
In the spring of that year, the Trump brothers also expanded their business into other areas, particularly focusing on the Gulf region. In April, Saudi-owned real estate developer Dar Global announced plans to open a Trump hotel in Dubai and create a Trump golf resort in neighboring Qatar—this company had previously collaborated with the Trump family on several Trump-branded projects in the Middle East, and Eric Trump personally attended related press conferences in the Gulf region.
Domestically, Donald Jr. attended the launch of another business investment: the high-end Washington club Executive Branch. Reportedly, the membership fee for this club is as high as $500,000. News reports indicate that Donald Jr. is one of the club's owners, along with his partners Malik and Bausk from the "1789" fund, and the two sons of Steve Witkoff, Zach and Alex (both co-founders of World Liberty Financial). According to U.S. CNBC, guests at the club's launch included Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Attorney General Pam Bondi, SEC Chairman Paul Atkins, and Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr.
Cryptocurrency and attracting foreign investors remain at the core of the Trump family's wealth accumulation strategy. A deep report by Reuters published in October about their "global cryptocurrency ATM" revealed that in May, Eric Trump promoted World Liberty Financial to potential investors at a cryptocurrency conference in Dubai, including Guren Bobby Zhou, a Chinese businessman arrested in the UK for alleged money laundering—Zhou denies all charges and has not been convicted. Reuters also noted that a UAE company related to Zhou subsequently purchased $100 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens WLFI. Clearly, such foreign investments are not isolated incidents: Reuters' analysis shows that more than two-thirds of WLFI token purchases came from digital wallets potentially linked to overseas buyers.
Trump also profited from official "gifts." The U.S. Constitution explicitly states that federal officials, including the president, may not accept gifts from foreign governments without congressional consent. However, in February, Trump, who had been complaining about the slow progress of the new "Air Force One," visited Palm Beach International Airport to inspect a luxurious Boeing 747 owned by the Qatari government. In May, just days before his trip to Qatar, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia, Trump announced on social media that the Pentagon would accept this Boeing 747 as a "free gift" from the Qatari royal family to replace the existing "Air Force One." White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt stated in a release: "Accepting gifts from foreign governments is fully compliant with all applicable laws, and the Trump administration is committed to maintaining complete transparency."
Another relatively low-profile deal involving Gulf countries that benefited the Trump family was the investment by the UAE government-controlled fund MGX, which invested $2 billion in Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, using stablecoins issued by World Liberty Financial for payment. Stablecoins are said to be a safer form of cryptocurrency backed by reserves of assets like the U.S. dollar, essentially providing a way to conduct transactions in the cryptocurrency space without worrying about severe price fluctuations.
It is no exaggeration to say that the background of the MGX and Binance deal is quite suspicious. Last year, Binance founder and Chinese-Canadian cryptocurrency billionaire Changpeng Zhao (CZ) pleaded guilty to failing to effectively implement anti-money laundering procedures at his exchange and served four months in a U.S. federal prison. In March of this year, the Wall Street Journal reported that Zhao was seeking a presidential pardon. In the same month, World Liberty Financial announced it would issue its own stablecoin USD1—while the transaction between MGX and Binance used this new stablecoin, fundamentally altering its market position. The Wall Street Journal noted: "This transaction caused the circulation of this cryptocurrency to surge 15 times, making it one of the largest stablecoins in the world overnight." At the same time, World Liberty Financial's account received $2 billion, which could be used to invest in government bonds and other assets—Bloomberg estimates this could generate $80 million annually, directly flowing into the Trump family business.
Why did Binance and MGX choose to use the USD1 stablecoin, which is essentially untested in the market? MGX told Forbes that the choice of this new stablecoin was because it is "managed by an independent U.S. custodian, with asset reserves held in externally audited custodial accounts." However, outsiders tend to favor a more realistic explanation: Zhao sought a pardon, while the UAE hoped to curry favor with the U.S. government, which could grant it valuable policy benefits. The New York Times detailed that just two weeks after the transaction was completed, the White House allowed the UAE to import hundreds of thousands of advanced computer chips that had previously been restricted from U.S. exports.
Summer is usually a slow season for business activities, but this year was not the case for the Trump family. In July, with government encouragement, Congress passed the GENIUS Act, establishing a regulatory framework for stablecoins—but this did not alleviate concerns among some who believe that integrating cryptocurrency into the mainstream financial system could pose risks. In the same month, Trump Media & Technology Company announced it had purchased approximately $2 billion worth of Bitcoin and other related securities, following the example of Michael Saylor's MicroStrategy, transforming from a social media business into a "Bitcoin treasury" company. Following this announcement, the company's stock price surged—after having significantly declined since the beginning of the year. In August, the Trump family initiated financial maneuvers involving World Liberty Financial: investing in a small public company, which then issued $750 million in stock to purchase WLFI tokens. An article in the Wall Street Journal noted: "This circular trading, where both the buyer and seller are the same entity and the transaction involves its own products, is more common in the cryptocurrency field than in traditional finance." By early September, some WLFI tokens began trading on cryptocurrency exchanges; two days later, American Bitcoin, in which Eric and Donald Jr. held shares, went public on NASDAQ, and the stock price immediately rose. Bloomberg reported that these maneuvers allowed the Trump family to "earn approximately $1.3 billion."
In the fall, related transactions and controversies continued. In October, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, causing an uproar, but he claimed he did not know the cryptocurrency entrepreneur and added that the pardon was "at the request of many upright individuals." In November, Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee released a staff report stating that Trump "used his power to make himself a cryptocurrency billionaire, providing extensive protection to fraudsters, con artists, and other cybercriminals—who paid millions of dollars in 'tribute' to the president and his family." In response to this report, White House Press Secretary Levitt stated: "The president and his family have never been, and will never be, involved in conflicts of interest. The government promotes innovation and economic opportunity through executive actions and supports reasonable policies like the GENIUS Act, fulfilling the commitment to 'make America the world capital of cryptocurrency.'"
Overall Income and Expenditure
There are various estimates regarding the total wealth accumulation of the Trump family. Reuters estimates that in the first half of this year, the family profited approximately $800 million from cryptocurrency sales; the Financial Times pointed out that in the 12 months leading up to October 2025, their total wealth accumulation exceeded $1 billion. If non-cryptocurrency business revenues (licensing agreements, gifts, special media deals, legal settlements, etc.) are included, the Center for American Progress, a think tank closely aligned with the Democrats, estimates that since Trump's re-election, the family's "total profit" has reached $1.8 billion. From a longer-term perspective, my colleague David Kirkpatrick estimates that since 2016, Trump has profited $3.4 billion from business related to the presidency.
It is important to note that these figures refer to cash income and do not include the appreciation of Trump's and his family's net worth—especially the appreciation gained from holding shares in World Liberty Financial and other cryptocurrency companies. In September, after WLFI tokens began trading on cryptocurrency exchanges, statistics indicated that the family's cryptocurrency wealth had a book value of $5 billion or even higher.
However, in the past few months, the market value of almost all cryptocurrency assets (including those related to the Trump family) has plummeted: the value of the TRUMP meme coin has dropped by about 80%, while the MELANIA meme coin has crashed by 98.5%; the stock of Trump Media & Technology Company (which, from a financial perspective, is now essentially a Bitcoin acquisition tool) has fallen nearly 70% since the beginning of the year, and nearly 40% since the large-scale accumulation of cryptocurrency; World Liberty Financial is a private company with no publicly traded stock, but its WLFI token value has dropped by more than one-third since early September; shares of American Bitcoin, associated with Eric Trump, have fallen over 75% during the same period.
For the Trump family and their business partners, this market crash is a painful consequence of their "all-in on cryptocurrency" strategy. In the future, their prospects will largely depend on the trends of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Yet, even after the recent crash, the Trump family's digital asset book value still amounts to billions of dollars; even if the cryptocurrency market were to go to zero tomorrow, the family still retains the cash they have accumulated since Trump's return to the White House—and there remains the potential for further wealth accumulation in the future.
Earlier this month, the Financial Times reported that the Pentagon's Strategic Capital Office, established by the Biden administration in 2022 to fund the development of new technologies with national security applications, provided a $620 million loan to a rare earth startup, Vulcan Earth, associated with Donald Jr. The company recently received investment from the "1789" fund (of which Donald Jr. is a partner). A spokesperson for Donald Jr. told the Financial Times that he was not involved in the company's dealings with the government; Pentagon, Commerce Department officials, and Vulcan Earth’s CEO all echoed this statement.
Nevertheless, the loan has raised questions. The Financial Times report noted: "This year, at least four companies in the '1789' fund's portfolio received contracts from the Trump administration, totaling $735 million." From one perspective, this may indicate that the "1789" fund has adopted a wise business strategy—aligning its investments with the new priorities of the Trump administration's Pentagon; but from another perspective, it appears to be yet another round of wealth accumulation for the Trump family. When the public affairs of this administration intertwine so closely with private interests, the truth becomes difficult to discern.
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