Harry Truman left the White House with no income beyond his Army pension of $113 a month, later writing that it was wrong to “commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency”. George W Bush put his investments in a blind trust before running and said he had no idea how the 2008 crash affected his net worth. Donald Trump, by contrast, made at least $2.2bn (£1.7bn) in his first year back in office, according to a financial disclosure report made public on Tuesday – a sum nearly four times the $622m he earned in 2024, the year before he returned to office.
The bulk came from cryptocurrency: $1.4bn from that industry alone, including $635m in royalties from Celebration Coins, the entity thought to be behind the $TRUMP meme coin he launched just before starting his second term, and more than $500m from World Liberty Financial, a crypto business founded by his sons Donald Trump Jr and Eric Trump alongside the sons of Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and Ukraine.
“Trump's income quadrupled to $2.2bn in first year back, prompting accusations of unprecedented conflict of interest.”
Presidential historian Barbara Perry of the University of Virginia’s Miller Center said there was “no precedent” for such earnings. “It’s beyond anything we’ve ever seen in the presidency,” she told the BBC. “Making money hand over fist in office, it’s not illegal, but it is unethical.” Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush, was blunter: “Of course it’s a conflict of interest.”
Trump denied any wrongdoing when speaking to reporters. “I don’t get involved in my personal finances,” he said. “We have funds that run my money. I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them.” The White House backed him up. “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged – or will ever engage – in conflicts of interest,” deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people – and any so-called ‘reporters’ pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade.”
As in his first term, Trump handed control of the Trump Organization to his sons before taking office, and the company said he would not be involved in its day-to-day dealings. Eric Trump insisted the firm would follow “robust ethical standards” throughout his father’s second term. Traditionally, presidents place business interests in a blind trust while in office. Trump’s refusal to do so, and the sheer scale of his earnings, have reignited questions about whether the line between public service and private profit has vanished.