What Doordash, Dell and Palantir all have in common

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

NPR.

Darian Woods (0:06)

This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Wayland Wong.

Adrian Ma (0:09)

And I'm Adrian Ma. President Trump loves talking about the stock market.

And when he gets going, let's just say he sounds more CNBC than C-SPAN.

SPEAKER_4 (0:20)

We have a hot country, it's going to go up. I think the market is going to go through the roof. I don't know how many of you people watch the stock market, but if the stock market is good, that's good for everybody. Good for you.

Good for everybody.

Darian Woods (0:31)

In fact, the president spent some of his speech at the United Nations this week on his favorite topic.

SPEAKER_4 (0:37)

US stock markets have set 80 all-time records, and that's just in the last 12 months.

Darian Woods (0:45)

And the president isn't just a stock market spectator. A Bloomberg analysis counted up how many trades he or his money managers have made since taking office for his second term.

They're tallying an eye-popping 28,700 trades. That's more than all members of Congress combined.

Adrian Ma (1:02)

More than 28,000 trades? I mean, that's a little wild.

Darian Woods (1:07)

Yeah, it works out to around 80 trades for each day that the market is open. So it's a lot of activity. And Trump has shown that he's happy to use his platform to promote individual companies, companies whose stock he trades in.

Adrian Ma (1:23)

Now, the White House says he's not actively directing these trades, although Trump has admitted to profiting from them. Either way, his boosterism represents a potential conflict of interest.

Darian Woods (1:34)

So today on the show, we look at three times Trump acted as cheerleader for companies he traded, companies that also have relationships with the federal government.

Adrian Ma (1:48)

The Majority of Executive Branch Employees in the US are barred from participating in government matters where they have a financial interest.

Darian Woods (1:55)

Now, historically, there are a couple notable exemptions to these laws, the president and the vice president. One rationale for this carve out is that the legislative branch didn't want to impinge on the power of the executive branch.

Adrian Ma (2:08)

When it comes to stock trading, the White House has repeatedly denied President Trump has any conflicts of interest. In a statement, White House spokesman Davis Ingle told us that President Trump's stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions that use automated computer models. And he added, quote, Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold.

Darian Woods (2:38)

Even so, as the president, Trump holds incredible sway over which companies are in the government's good graces. So he wanted to look back at three examples of Trump boosting a company whose stock he has traded in.

Adrian Ma (2:50)

The first example is Dell, who, by the way, is a financial supporter of NPR.

Trump's financial disclosures show the president bought up to $5 million in Dell stock during the first quarter of this year. And around the same time, the president praised not just founder Michael Dell and his wife Susan, but the company's products too.

SPEAKER_4 (3:10)

Go out and buy a Dell computer because they don't care about that. They care about this.

They make a great product. They're not looking for any publicity. I give them publicity.

Adrian Ma (3:20)

Trump was thanking the Dells for a $6.25 billion commitment towards the government program that sets up investment accounts for children.

Darian Woods (3:28)

And it wasn't the only time he sang their praises. A few months later, he was doing it again.

SPEAKER_4 (3:33)

Michael and Susan Dell, they are truly incredible people. Go out and buy a Dell computer. He's not doing it for that. But I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten even bigger.

Adrian Ma (3:44)

And between those two remarks, the Department of Defense awarded a Dell subsidiary a contract worth nearly $10 billion.

Darian Woods (3:52)

Now, speaking of government contracts, the second company we're going to talk about is Palantir. This is a tech company co-founded by billionaire Peter Thiel. He's a Trump donor who served on the president's 2016 transition team.

Palantir makes software that analyzes large data sets, including surveillance data. It has more than a billion dollars' worth of contracts with the federal government. CEO Alex Carp listed some of Palantir's clients in an interview with Wired Magazine last year.

SPEAKER_1 (4:19)

Our first contracts were at US. Intelligence, so CIA, Special Operations and FBI. Our biggest contracts ended up being in the DOD.