Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. Scandals persist.
David Uberti, et al. at WSJ
When President Trump ran for re-election in 2024, he and his family already had vast business interests stretching from Manhattan office towers to a golf course in Ireland to hotel deals as far away as Vietnam.
The president’s second term has brought a major expansion of that empire, with forays into cryptocurrency, communications, financial products and now, a fusion-power deal. Ventures launched since Trump’s re-election generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the family as of December, according to company statements and securities filings.
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The recent expansion has made the Trumps a major player in the crypto world. They have launched a host of new ventures and products, from memecoins to data centers. The president is also pushing to relax regulations on the industry. The biggest crypto venture is World Liberty Financial. It has sold about $1.4 billion worth of WLFI tokens, a digital asset it created, The Wall Street Journal has reported. The firm also has launched USD1, a “stablecoin” whose value is pegged to the dollar and which generates significant interest income. The Trumps have a major stake in this business which is ultimately controlled by Trump and his family members through a complex ownership structure. The president has about 70% ownership of the stake through his trust, disclosures show.iness. World Liberty’s site says it is 38% owned by an entity called DT Marks Defi LLC...
In addition to their ownership interests in these businesses, the Trumps are co-founders or operators of many of them. Trump and his sons co-founded World Liberty. The Trumps receive 75% of net proceeds when World Liberty sells tokens, plus a cut of stablecoin returns. That revenue share would translate into about $1 billion in proceeds so far for the Trumps. The Trumps’ unsold tokens were worth about $3 billion as of December.
