Trump’s “payroll” exposed: Crypto generated $1.4 billion in revenue, with more than 22,000 stock trades

Original | Odaily Star Daily（@OdailyChina）

Author | Wenser（@wenser 2010）

How much does the U.S. president earn in a year?

Before Trump, this number was usually $400,000, which is the statutory president’s base annual salary; there was also an additional $50,000 in yearly allowances, $100,000 in tax-free travel reimbursements, and $19,000 in entertainment expense subsidies. The perks around power also include a presidential motorcade, the Marine One helicopter, Air Force One, and free residence rights at the White House.

But “usually” has never been enough to describe Trump—recently, according to the Trump annual financial disclosure documents released by the U.S. federal government’s Office of Government Ethics, Trump’s personal income in 2025 exceeded $2.2 billion, setting the highest annual income record among U.S. presidents during their terms.

This 927-page document clearly sketches the business empire centered on Trump’s power.

Trump’s “power monetization playbook”: Crypto income of $1.4 billion, BTC and ETH holdings exceed $100 million

For Trump, who has been inaugurated twice as U.S. president, the $400,000 base salary is already beneath his notice—he has refused the presidential salary both times.

Instead, by leveraging his “brand image” and “family business,” he expanded his reach in the business world, carving out one fortune road after another outside real estate in his own line of work.

Trump’s “income curve”: personal wealth up 2.8x in 2 years, crypto becomes the treasure chest

According to Forbes’ billionaire list data, in 2024, Trump’s personal net worth was still $2.3 billion; at that time, his annual income was around $600 million, and he also carried large debts—one was a $500 million penalty owed to New York State for fraud; the other was an $88 million debt to the “sexual assault case” plaintiff Carroll stemming from the sexual assault scandal and defamation conviction.

Based on 2026 data, Trump currently has personal net worth of $6.5 billion. In 2025, Trump’s personal annual income was $2.2 billion, of which “family’s new business” crypto generated $1.4 billion, accounting for about 64%; “the family’s old line” real estate income was $575 million, accounting for about 26%; the remaining 10% mainly came from litigation settlement payments ($86.5 million), brand licensing fees ($68.6 million), and other income such as stock investments ($79.3 million).

Odaily Star Daily will focus on digging into the Trump family’s “crypto wealth-making manual” and “Trump-style industry chain.”

Trump’s “crypto breakdown”: I didn’t know, and I didn’t avoid it

In recent media interviews, “Mr. Great President” said he was not aware of his “crypto-currency gains,” with his own words: “I’ve been making money all along. I’m a businessman—and I’m a very good businessman. I’ve made money, and it’s been a substantial amount….. I had other people manage those money. I never even talked to them—I don’t even know who they are… My son Eric (Trump’s second son) handles that area. I never discussed these kinds of things with him… Not knowing about these things isn’t against the law… There’s no law that says when you’re managing a country you have to recuse yourself from every decision that could possibly involve you. It’s not realistic to do that.”

For some reason, this kind of Versailles-style boasting—“Huh? I made more money again?”—coming out of Trump’s mouth is hardly surprising.

According to the latest personal financial filing, Trump’s personal assets include BTC and ETH worth more than $100 million, as well as a handful of altcoins including LINK, AAVE, ENA, MOVE, and ONDO; Trump also earned nearly $800 million from the crypto project World Liberty Financial, which he co-founded with his son (including $527 million in token sale revenue and $263 million in equity transfer revenue, including equity income from Stablecoin Holdco LLC and WLFI company); from selling TRUMP Meme coins, he earned about $635 million, and he also earned more than $80 million from legal settlements with media companies.

Reuters previously estimated that since Trump returned to the presidency in January 2025, the Trump family’s crypto business has generated at least $2.3 billion in profits from investors.

Where does income in the crypto world come from?

Take the “presidential Meme coin” as an example: TRUMP caused about 1 million people to incur investment losses.

One man achieves success and another pays with his bones— in a crypto market that eats people, every dollar of Trump’s income behind it comes from the bloody chips handed over by retail investors and institutions.

Trump’s “personal American dream”: I’m the stock god

Beyond crypto, the stock market is also a heavy highlight in the legend of Trump’s wealth.

According to information from financial filings, in 2025 Trump reported more than 22,000 stock trades, with as many as 87 trades per day on average, making him a clear-cut “high-frequency trader.” Consistent with Trump’s prior explanation, the White House said that “these trades are executed by the professional investment team from the Trump trust account, not directly by Trump himself.”

But a closer look at Trump’s stock holdings is intriguing.

• In terms of specific holdings, Trump’s name includes 8 stock accounts holding more than 4,000 stocks, mainly concentrated in U.S. market giants such as Google (Alphabet), Apple, Broadcom, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, Amazon, and others, with holding values ranging from $5 million to $25 million. In addition, index products such as S&P 500 ETFs and technology sector ETFs are also included.
• In terms of trading style, Trump’s stock investments are not a “value investing style,” but more like “swing trading.” Over the past year, Trump’s stock accounts bought and sold Microsoft 84 times; for Google it was even more, 97 times. Most strangely, on August 18 last year, Trump’s stock accounts bought in almost all at once the eight tech stocks mentioned earlier, plus major targets across multiple fields such as payments, technology, investment banking, insurance, and healthcare—e.g., Visa, Mastercard, JPMorgan Chase, UnitedHealth, Eli Lilly, and others.
• In terms of long-held assets, Trump’s accounts bought gold ETFs 5 times within a year, with not a single sell; U.S. Treasuries and a Vanguard fund tracking dividend growth are also included.

Now let’s think carefully: when these on-exchange trades happened, what was going on in the “off-exchange world”?

Over the course of last year, Trump’s accounts conducted repeated intensive trading before and after major U.S. policy announcements: in April last year, Trump announced a “Liberation Day” tariff on global trade partners, which triggered a “global tariff war” at one point; U.S.-China tariffs even surged to over 100%. At that time, Trump’s account executed hundreds of stock trades consecutively over a few days. A few days later, Trump staged the first “TACO” storyline: first he said “now is a good time to buy,” then announced a pause on the additional tariff increases, and U.S. stocks immediately rebounded sharply. Also, from late August to October last year, Trump’s account at one point bought corporate bonds and municipal bonds worth at least $82 million, spanning multiple industries, with many industries clearly benefiting from adjustments to U.S. policies.

Just yesterday, the U.S. again launched attacks on Iran, causing crude oil to rise and U.S. stocks to fall. A seemingly insider address built up a position betting “long crude oil and short the Nasdaq 100,” with a position size of $21 million and an unrealized profit of over $500,000—leaving no choice but to connect the dots.

All signs suggest that “TACO” is full of insider trading and behind-the-scenes collusion.

“TACO” conspiracy theory: insider trading and a show that goes through the motions

For a long time, the conflict between Trump’s business dealings and U.S. national interests has been a public focus and the core of controversy. Many Democratic senators previously raised objections, calling for relevant departments to take measures and launch investigations, but limited by Trump’s status as president, most controversies ultimately either went nowhere or were temporarily shelved.

But when looking back now, Trump’s many abnormal behaviors may actually be motivated by profit-seeking.

In early January 2025, just days before Trump officially took office, an investment company associated with the UAE government acquired 49% of WLFI equity for $500 million. Soon after, despite strong opposition from some U.S. national security officials, the Trump administration still reached a deal with the UAE on an AI-related computer chip export agreement.

In addition, Trump’s family company, the Trump Group, also received millions to tens of millions of dollars in revenue separately from real estate projects in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Romania, and Vietnam; those countries subsequently received policy or political concessions from the U.S. in trade, military, technology, and other areas.

And this also ties back to the Trump family’s “real estate business” that helped them build their fortunes, as well as the brand resort they created with Trump’s powerful celebrity halo.

Brand value: naming rights from President Trump

Going through Trump’s personal financial reports, what stands out is an entire section that includes many companies starting with “DT Marks”—DT Marks Dubai, DT Marks Doha, DT Marks Abu Dhabi, DT Marks Hyderabad, DT Marks Gurgaon… Looking at it from afar, it seems like real estate businesses all over the world are connected to the Trump family.

But in reality, these companies are just “shell companies”—most of them have no real assets, and as for “valuation,” there’s no such thing. Their only value is “enjoying the brand premium of carrying the TRUMP name.” In other words, through a “surname licensing” model using 20 DT Marks-related companies, Trump raked in nearly $60 million in just 2025 alone—of which DT Marks Dubai generated $10.36 million, and DT Marks Abu Dhabi generated $9.24 million.

Unlike Obama, who sold his memoir after leaving office, gave global speeches, and posed for photos with entrepreneurs, Trump has already maximized the commercial value of the “president” brand tied to the surname “Trump.”

Mutual pursuit in the era of politics and business, and the businessman president

Over the past 250 years, compared with the political power represented by the office of “U.S. president,” the president’s ability to make money has never drawn widespread attention.

When Biden left office, his net worth was about $10 million; at the end of 2025, Obama’s personal net worth was also only nearly $70 million. Obama and his wife’s total income in 2013 was only $481,100, because “the book didn’t sell well,” which was nearly $130,000 less than in 2012, and he also had to bear personal income tax as high as 20.4%.

From Washington to Trump: the 47th U.S. presidents, salary increased only 5 times, specifically—Washington’s presidential term salary of $25,000 (reportedly donated entirely to the country); pre-1873 President Grant’s annual salary rose to $50,000; 36 years later, former President Taft’s annual income reached $75,000; in 1949, former President Truman’s salary surpassed $100,000; 20 years later, former President Nixon’s salary finally rose to $200,000; in 1999, at Clinton’s request, the U.S. president’s annual salary was raised to $400,000, but due to a U.S. legal provision limiting “salary increases only taking effect after the next president enters the White House,” George W. Bush ultimately became the “first U.S. president with a $400,000 annual salary.”

And now, just the first year of his second term, Trump has, on his own, raised his annual income to the scale of several billions of dollars. Obviously, it’s not coming from a dead salary. Move the times forward? Manage the fate of the nation? Monetize power? All three at once. This is what makes Trump different from his predecessors in what he sees and what he seizes: seeing through the essence of the world’s rules, then fully using them for himself.

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