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

April 29 News, Forbes published an article criticizing former President Trump’s son Eric Trump’s Bitcoin business as a disaster, and pointed out that Eric Trump promotes his Bitcoin company American Bitcoin (ABTC) as a printing press, but in reality, it is just an arbitrage tool, specifically to exploit investors supporting MAGA (Make America Great Again). American Bitcoin was established in 2025 and quickly listed on Nasdaq, leveraging the Trump family brand and the Bitcoin craze to push its valuation up to $13.2 billion. Eric Trump heavily promoted the company as a “leader in the Bitcoin world” during earnings calls, but the actual company has only a few full-time employees and mainly relies on storytelling marketing rather than solid operations. The company continuously sells stock at high valuations to buy Bitcoin, while Eric invested almost nothing himself, yet managed to increase his personal wealth from about $190 million to $280 million, with other insiders also profiting handsomely.
Meanwhile, ordinary investors, especially MAGA supporters, suffered heavy losses. Over the past eight months, American Bitcoin’s stock price has fallen about 92% from its peak, resulting in a total investor loss of approximately $500 million. Forbes questioned the actual profitability of American Bitcoin’s Bitcoin mining business, believing that its promoted “half-price mining” is difficult to achieve, and that it is more about using the Trump brand to dump high-priced stocks.