The $2.2 billion windfall President Trump reaped since his second term has raised questions over potential conflicts of interest and whether he has profited from public office, but Mr. Trump has dismissed any notion of impropriety.
Some of Mr. Trump’s most lucrative ventures seemed to intersect directly with his administration’s policies like cryptocurrency and dealings with foreign governments.
But, Mr. Trump has argued, his personal financial gains reflected a stock market benefiting everyone; his investments and business dealings were in a blind trust, not unlike other presidents; and unlike his predecessors, he donated his presidential salary.
Except none of those assertions are true.
Here’s a fact-check.
What Was Said
This is misleading. Of the $2.2 billion in revenue Mr. Trump reported in his 2025 financial disclosure forms, the bulk does not come from growth in the stock market. Additionally, none of the major indexes grew by 85 percent, nor has the average 401(k) account.
Cryptocurrency ventures accounted for more than $1.4 billion. Two of Mr. Trump’s real estate holdings in Florida alone — the Mar-a-Lago club and the Trump National Doral golf club — brought in almost $200 million. Branding deals brought at least $55 million and settlements from news media companies $87 million. Together, those examples total more than three-quarters of the $2.2 billion.
Revenue in Mr. Trump’s first year back in office rose by more than 250 percent compared with the $622 million he reported in 2024.
Since Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20, 2025, to early July 2026, the S&P 500 has risen by roughly 24 percent, the Dow Jones by roughly 19 percent and the Nasdaq Composite Index by roughly 33 percent. According to Fidelity Investments, average 401(k) balances increased by 11 percent from the last quarter of 2024 to the last quarter of 2025.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said Mr. Trump had “implemented policies that have made all Americans wealthier and more prosperous.”
This is misleading. Mr. Trump’s investments, assets and business interests are held in a revocable trust, according to an ethics agreement issued last year by his company, the Trump Organization. This arrangement is not the same thing as a blind trust.
“All of the president’s assets,” Ms. Kelly said, are “held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions. There are no conflicts of interest.”
Other than Mr. Trump, every president since the 1970s who has owned individual stocks and bonds has used a blind trust. (Some, like Presidents Barack Obama and Joseph R. Biden Jr., did not own individual stocks and kept their money instead in cash, Treasury notes or mutual funds.)
Blind trusts established by federal officials must abide by certain legal requirements. Most officials elect what is known as a “qualified blind trust,” but others set up a “qualified diversified trust,” which includes even stricter guardrails. Under both types, the trustee must be an institution, completely independent and approved by the Office of Government Ethics. The official has no knowledge of acquired assets, receives quarterly reports about the total value of the assets and cannot communicate with the trustee outside of written notes preapproved by the office.
For example, Boston Harbor Trust Company served as the trustee for President Bill Clinton’s blind trust, which was approved by the Office of Government Ethics in 1993. His tax returns disclosed the gains from the blind trust, but not the individual assets themselves. President George W. Bush has said he did not speak to his blind trust’s trustee, Northern Trust Company, at all during his time in office, nor was he aware of just how much money he lost during the 2008 recession.
Mr. Trump’s trust is not a blind trust and does not abide by the rules governing one, said Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette, the director of government affairs at the Project on Government Oversight, a nonpartisan watchdog. He added that legally, “there is no such thing as a semiblind trust” either.
At a 2017 news conference, a longtime lawyer for the Trump Organization agreed that Mr. Trump’s trust was not a blind trust and argued that it would be impractical for someone with his business holdings, noting that he “cannot unknow that he owns Trump Tower.”
It is true that there are some guardrails in how the president’s brokerage accounts, also held by the trust, are managed. But the structure still differs from a qualified blind trust in several ways.
For one, the Office of Government Ethics was not involved in the trust’s creation, its director said in 2017.
The New York Times reported in June that Mr. Trump’s accounts are managed by outside brokerage firms and neither Mr. Trump nor his family can place trades. One of Mr. Trump’s sons has said that the firms have “sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions.” The Times found no indication of insider trading. But Mr. Trump is allowed to know about his assets and meets with financial advisers annually.
And appointing his family member as the trustee, as Mr. Trump has done, “would immediately create a sort of a noncompliance issue. It wouldn’t be a qualified blind trust anymore,” Mr. Hedtler-Gaudette said, calling Mr. Trump’s claim “classic rhetorical smoke and mirrors.”
What Was Said
False. At least two other presidents have donated their entire salaries, while others have donated portions.
During his four years in office, President Herbert Hoover donated his annual paycheck of $75,000 to charities and to supplement the salaries of federal workers he believed were underpaid, he said in 1937. For example, Hoover donated about $10,000 annually to the San Francisco Welfare Board, which “got in the habit of thinking that was my regular contribution” and continued to ask for the donation even after Hoover left office, he said.
During his two years in office, President John F. Kennedy also donated his salary of $100,000. A 1987 biography lists 10 charities that received donations, including the Boy Scouts of America, the Girl Scouts of America, Services for Crippled Children, hospitals in California and Massachusetts, the United Negro College Fund and the Cuban Families Committee.
Mr. Trump has donated more money than his immediate predecessors, but less as a proportion of his net worth.
Unlike his predecessors, Mr. Trump has refused to publicly release his tax returns, so the exact amount of his annual net income now is not known. But tax data released by Congress during his first term shows that Mr. Trump donated about $2.9 million from 2017 to 2020, or about 26 percent of his net gross adjusted income of $11 million or 0.1 percent of his net worth at the end of his term.
In comparison, tax returns released by Mr. Biden showed charitable donations of about $89,000 from 2020 to 2023, about 4 percent of his income and about 1.1 percent of his term-end net worth. Mr. Obama donated about $1 million from 2009 to 2017, about 9 percent of his income and about 8 percent of his term-end net worth. Mr. Bush donated about $761,000 from 2000 to 2007, about 14 percent of his income and 4 percent to 11 percent of his term-end net worth.
