Forbes criticizes Eric Trump for large-scale arbitrage through Bitcoin business, harming MAGA investors

Mars Finance News reports that Forbes published an article criticizing former President Trump’s son, Eric Trump, over his Bitcoin business as a disaster, and noting that Eric Trump markets his Bitcoin company, American Bitcoin (ABTC), as a money-printing machine. In reality, it is only an arbitrage tool, designed to prey on investors who back MAGA (Make America Great Again). American Bitcoin was founded in 2025 and quickly listed on Nasdaq, leveraging the Trump family brand and the Bitcoin boom to drive its valuation up to $13.2 billion. Eric Trump also touted the company as a “leader in the Bitcoin world” during earnings call meetings, but in practice the company has only a small number of full-time employees and relies mainly on story-based marketing rather than solid operations. The company repeatedly offloads stock at inflated valuations to buy Bitcoin, while Eric himself invests almost nothing—yet this has enabled him to increase his personal wealth from about $190 million to $280 million, and other insiders have also profited handsomely. Meanwhile, ordinary investors, especially MAGA supporters, have suffered severe losses. Over the past eight months, American Bitcoin’s stock has fallen about 92% from its peak, resulting in cumulative losses of about $500 million for investors. Forbes questions the actual profitability of American Bitcoin’s Bitcoin mining business, arguing that the “half-price mining” it promotes is difficult to achieve, and that it is more of a scheme to use the Trump brand to offload high-priced shares.