Trump's Crypto Windfall

**Brigid Bergen** (0:10)
It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Brigid Bergen, senior reporter in the WNYC and Gothibus newsroom. Filling in for Brian today, I hope you are staying cool.
Coming up later in the show, my colleague Michael Saul Warren brings us news from New Jersey, including Representative Tom Kane Jr.'s return to the House and the state's new budget. Plus, historian Sarah Pearsall takes a wider lens on the American Revolution and talks about its effects around the world beyond this continent. Then we end the show with a round up of some of the events around town this weekend to celebrate the country's big 250th birthday.
There's a lot going on. But we're going to start things off today with a deep dive into President Trump's latest financial disclosure filing. Perhaps you've heard a bit about this. The headlines are everywhere. The president reported making $1 billion, yes, billion with a B, in the first year of his presidency from cryptocurrency investments alone. That comes in addition to earnings from his real estate portfolio, various royalty deals and even some lucrative legal settlements. These windfalls are raising the ir of ethics watchdogs who say his conflicts of interests, particularly in the crypto space, are unprecedented. The president and his spokespeople deny any conflicts of interest. Joining me now to unpack where all the president's money is coming from is Wall Street Journal reporter David Uberti, who covers the intersection of financial markets and the economy. David, welcome to WNYC.

**David Uberti** (1:48)
Thanks so much for having me.

**Brigid Bergen** (1:50)
David, let's start big picture. What were the president's overall earnings reported in that disclosure filing from last year?

**David Uberti** (1:59)
Well, we've been pouring through this roughly 900-page document in recent days and trying to basically tally up all of these various line items. What we've found is in terms of income, actual cash money in the president's pocket, he reported some $2.2 billion in income in 2025 Now, in the lead-in to my introduction, you mentioned how he raked in something like a billion dollars from various cryptocurrency ventures. By our calculations, it's actually something like $1.4 billion, as well as roughly $600 million from his real estate and hospitality empire, broadly speaking, which is an uptick from other recent years, as well as tens of millions of dollars from royalties and licensing fees, everything from licensing deals for hotels to book royalties, as well as licensing deals for Trump-branded guitars, Trump-branded watches, and finally, tens of millions of dollars of legal settlements from both tech and media companies across the economy. Last year, I began reporting on the Trump family's business interests more extensively, and he's released these types of disclosures for going on a decade now since his first term.
The amount of money he reported in terms of income last year blew every one of those other reports out of the water.

**Brigid Bergen** (3:29)
Wow. Well, we're going to dig deeper into some of those line items that you mentioned, some of those different buckets of earnings.
I did mention the crypto earnings because it's the largest of the buckets. And when I think back to the start of this administration, I think of that Trump meme coin he launched ahead of the inauguration. Is that what helped bring in this billion plus dollars?

**David Uberti** (3:56)
So there's two basic buckets that we're talking about with regard to Trump's reported cryptocurrency income. One was this Trump branded meme coin that you referenced. The tagline for it was dollar sign Trump. And per his financial disclosure, he reported income through an entity linked to this coin of some 600 plus million dollars. And essentially, what happened was entities linked to Trump launched this coin. It skyrocketed in value momentarily.
It appears that during that period, President Trump made a ton of money off of it. And then the coin subsequently crashed. And so we have some new reporting out today that in the month since that coin was actually launched, the vast majority of other holders of that coin are actually underwater. So while Trump and apparently other large cryptocurrency traders who may or may not be connected to Trump made money off of this venture, it appears that most people who bought into it, whether they're political followers or whether they're cryptocurrency enthusiasts, actually lost money on this. So that is one bucket of the cryptocurrency empire. The other bucket is a crypto project by the name of World Liberty Financial. It was co-founded with Trump and his sons, as well as the sons of Steve Witkoff, who's a special envoy for the president as well.
World Liberty Financial, Trump made something like $800 million from this venture and it was through a combination of him, rather the company issuing tokens through World Liberty Financial, which various investors can buy, as well as Trump selling equity in that company to various people. As some of my colleagues at The Wall Street Journal have reported over the last year or so, a very large portion of that equity stake was bought by a royal connected to the United Arab Emirates. We see this set of interconnections, not only between Trump with these potential conflict of interest with the cryptocurrency industry itself, but also potential conflicts with some of our geopolitical partners who may have invested interest in trying to change US policy as well.