Donald Trump declared more than 22,000 stock transactions in 2025, according to an FT analysis of financial disclosures released this week. His immediate predecessor Joe Biden disclosed 13 transactions over four years. In his first term, Trump declared 517. The disclosures show Trump bought between $461 million and $1.4 billion in stocks last year across eight investment accounts, seven of which appeared to be tracking broad market indices. The eighth engaged in more targeted stockpicking, including positions in restaurant chain Kura Sushi and arms company Kratos Defence.
In total, Trump disclosed at least $2.2 billion in outside income in 2025, spanning crypto ventures, real estate, licensing fees, legal settlements and stock sales. His Mar-a-Lago resort generated $77.5 million in revenue. Three golf courses brought in over $94 million combined. Licensing fees from foreign real estate projects in India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE exceeded $58 million.
His largest single income source was crypto. Trump earned more than $1.16 billion from crypto sales and memecoin royalties last year, including $526.8 million from sales of WLFI tokens — the digital asset tied to World Liberty Financial, the crypto company founded by his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr near the end of the 2024 presidential campaign.
The Conflict Hidden in Plain Sight
Trump’s spokesperson indicated that his investment holdings are “maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions,” and that neither Trump nor his family plays any role in selecting or approving specific investments. That framing addresses the question of direct control. It does not address the question of financial interest.
Trump bought up to $67 million in Nvidia shares last year. He has mentioned the company during at least 31 public events and 19 times on social media. Nvidia has been at the centre of international negotiations over semiconductor chip exports — negotiations conducted by the administration Trump leads. He also bought up to $70 million in Microsoft, $63 million in Apple, $33 million in Amazon and $21 million in Broadcom — all companies directly affected by federal regulation, procurement decisions and trade policy.
This is Not a Coincidence
The number that demands the most scrutiny is not the stock portfolio. It is the $1.16 billion in crypto income earned in the same year that the Trump administration dropped the significant Biden-era enforcement cases against the industry’s largest companies — cases that had been the primary regulatory threat hanging over crypto markets for years.
I have covered enough of this industry to know that regulatory outcomes and political relationships are never entirely separate. But the scale and directness of what the disclosures show here is unusual even by those standards. The president of the United States earned more than a billion dollars from a crypto venture while his administration systematically dismantled the enforcement architecture that had constrained that same industry. The memecoin royalties, the WLFI token sales, the dropped cases — each element is explicable individually. Together they describe a financial relationship between a sitting president and an industry he regulates that has no modern precedent.
The GENIUS Act, which Trump signed into law, created the first federal framework for stablecoins. World Liberty Financial has its own stablecoin. These are not separate stories.
This report is based on information from The Financial Times.
