Plenty of rich people have blown fortunes on politics. But no other American has used politics to create as much personal wealth as the 45th president, who left office with a new asset — throngs of people willing to buy almost anything from him, at virtually any price.
onald Trump has built his entire brand around being a winner. But on January 20, 2021, he looked very much the opposite in every way possible. Defeated by voters, then impeached a second time after the Capitol riot he had fomented, Trump arrived back in Palm Beach, Florida, to an empire in distress. His commercial real estate was largely empty, his hotel business bleeding tens of millions, his licensing ventures at a standstill.
A week later, Trump welcomed Wes Moss and Andy Litinsky, former Apprentice contestants, to his private club for a business pitch. Alongside hamburgers and ice cream, the apprentices presented something that piqued the interest of the master: a Trump-branded media and technology company, complete with a social media app like Twitter, a streaming service like Disney+ and a web-hosting platform like Amazon. The most alluring part of the proposal? Trump would get 90% of the equity—and, according to someone involved in the deal, did not have to invest a thing upfront.
So began a four-year transformation that turned America’s most famous real estate billionaire into the first American ever to create billions from his politics. Other rich people have run for office, and many, many politicians—including every living ex-president—have leveraged fame and contacts into post-career riches. But no one has cashed in the way, or on the scale, that Trump has.
In early 2021, Forbes estimated that Trump was worth $2.4 billion, with $1.4 billion tied up in traditional commercial property, $1 billion of that concentrated in New York City. Today he returns to The Forbes 400 with an estimated net worth of $4.3 billion, the majority—$2.2 billion as of August 30, the day we locked in values for the list—stemming from the social media business, which went public in March. Just $600 million is now in New York commercial real estate. In less than four years, he has grown and completely transformed a fortune that he built over 40 years.
The presidency surely boosted Trump’s profits in his core ventures, helping lift his operating income to an estimated $218 million last year, 58% higher than what he averaged while he was in the White House, according to an analysis of tax returns, financial disclosures, bond filings, credit reports and internal records. Once a middling part of his empire, his golf and club business has become a cash gusher, a way to literally sell access to the most famous man on earth in the form of sky-high initiation fees. Forbes estimates that segment of his holding is now worth $1.1 billion, versus $570 million when he left office, as profits roughly tripled. Also adding to his bottom line: a random assortment of internet-fueled hucksterism encompassing coffee table books, NFTs, Bibles, even bits of the suit he wore to debate Joe Biden in June.
