Ventures launched by the Trump family since Donald Trump’s reelection have generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the Trump family. With investments across sectors like real estate, hospitality, media, cryptocurrency and more, the Trumps are “increasingly integrating their business empire” into the wider U.S. economy, says David Uberti, who has been reporting on the family’s self-enrichment for The Wall Street Journal. The coupling of Trump’s economic and political influence is raising major questions about conflicts of interest. “You have all of these different business interests in different areas in which the government regulates,” and this “proximity to power may help along some of these deals and the valuations at which they’re made.”
We look at the Trumps’ cryptocurrency venture World Liberty Financial and the Trump Organization’s planned $6 billion merger with a firm hoping to build a nuclear fusion plant to power AI data centers with Uberti, who says such “very speculative, highly risky corners of financial markets” are key to the family’s investment strategy.
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: In The Wall Street Journal, you recently revealed that ventures launched since Trump’s reelection have generated at least $4 billion in proceeds and paper wealth for the Trump family, that figure based on company statements and security filings. In addition, you’ve reported how one of the family businesses, Trump Media & Technology, recently announced a $6 billion merger with a firm aiming to build the world’s first viable nuclear fusion plant to power AI projects and data centers, this merger particularly interesting given it was announced shortly after Trump signed an executive order to bar states and local governments from enacting their own AI regulations. If you can start off, David, on this issue of the massive Trump wealth that has been accumulated just in this first year of President Trump?
DAVID UBERTI: Right. The $4 billion figure that you mentioned, that’s in proceeds and also paper wealth that have been generated strictly by businesses that have been launched since he’s been elected. It’s potentially a conservative estimate. This is only what has been made public, either through securities filings or federal disclosures made by the president or the first family. These range from the traditional real estate, golf, hotels business, but increasingly veering to things like cryptocurrency, different types of merchandise. You mentioned the fusion deal, as well.
And what we see is that, you know, Trump was, in some cases, elected because he is a businessman. He can run the government like a business. The potential byproduct of that is, if you have a president who doesn’t divest from his assets as previous presidents have done, you have all of these different business interests in different areas in which the government regulates, which raises a lot of questions.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about where the Trump investments are around the world.
DAVID UBERTI: They’re totally global. The hotels, the real estate, the golf courses, they span everywhere from the United States to Ireland to Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, as well. Cryptocurrency is, by nature, a global, you know, type of industry. And that’s where you see the real money making being—happening right now. We made this conservative investment, not taking into account some of the memecoins the president and his family have generated. It’s very difficult to track how much money or proceeds those types of things generate. But it’s truly a global operation at this point.
And it’s worth saying that the White House and the Trump Organization, when we’ve corresponded with them, they say there is no conflict of interest, they’ve installed guardrails around all of this. But as our reporting shows, a lot of these assets lead back up into the Trump Revocable Trust, which is what—which is a trust and a vehicle that is ultimately controlled by Donald Trump Jr., and it benefits Donald Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: The biggest crypto venture is World Liberty Financial. Explain who owns it, what it is, and the countries it’s working with.
DAVID UBERTI: World Liberty Financial was co-founded by Trump and his sons, as well as Steve Witkoff and his sons. It is owned, basically 40 percent, by entities linked to the Trump family. And through a complex ownership structure, various entities lead that investment back up into the Trump Revocable Trust. Now, World Liberty Financial issues its own governance tokens, as well as stable tokens—stablecoins, rather, which are backed by U.S. Treasury bonds. And through both of those different offerings, they can get both trading fees as well as interest payments by their Treasury holdings, as well. As some of my colleagues reported, different investors in cryptocurrency around the world have either put money into the stablecoin offerings—those span Middle East and Asian investors—
AMY GOODMAN: Be more specific when you talk about Middle East and South Asia. And what are the countries that are pouring billions into these Trump family businesses?
DAVID UBERTI: More specifically, the founder of—as my colleagues have reported, the founder of Binance, who was recently under federal investigation, he made an investment. He bought some of the stablecoins that World Liberty Financial offers. And that business deal was helped along, in some instances, by different Middle Eastern players, as well. So, this really—
AMY GOODMAN: Like?
DAVID UBERTI: This really spans different Gulf nations. These countries are very big into crypto. They are investing in this area in the hopes of diversifying their economies away from energy, as well. And because the Trumps have become such a large player and they have many business and political collections, it’s also almost natural, in some senses, that they would work together. And it just so happens that Donald Trump is the president, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: And just so happens. So, you’ve got the sons of Donald Trump. You’ve got the sons of the so-called peace envoy, Witkoff, where you have them all traveling together. And as the envoys leave, you’ve got the sons there. What do they gain by their parents, either the president of the United States or his number one representative in dealing with different countries, by being there in their wake? Have you been able to trace that?
DAVID UBERTI: I mean, it certainly hasn’t hurt their prospects. I mean, we’ve spoken to people, bankers, investors, potential business partners in different industries. You know, they are attracted to the fact that the Trump family name carries a considerable amount of fame and power, and has for some time. As I said, the White House says there is no conflict of interest, but it raises a lot of questions over sort of like the indirect ways in which the sort of proximity to power may help along some of these deals and the valuations at which they’re made.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s get into the AI data centers and what fuel them. Talk about the Trump company that will now deal with nuclear fusion, and the possibility of nuclear fusion powering—it requires massive energy, these data centers—and at the same time, President Trump issuing an executive order that would prevent states or local entities from regulating anything related to data centers.
DAVID UBERTI: Well, there’s two things happening here. First and foremost, the Trump administration has been all-in on AI data centers. They want to boost this as a new American industry, foment investment from the major players in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. They want to reduce as many regulations as possible, both to build data centers and to build the energy infrastructure, mostly natural gas infrastructure, as well as nuclear, but that is needed to power those data centers. So that’s what’s happening on one part of the industry side of things.
At the same time, Trump Media, which was originally founded, as you know, as sort of a holding company for the Truth Social social media platform, has really sort of traveled through the wilderness in terms of finding an actual business to become over the last several years or so. They were founded in 2021, when Donald Trump was very much in the outs with corporate America and Wall Street. And this business deal with TAE Technologies, which is quite an established player in the nascent nuclear fusion field, it kind of represents full circle happening for that Trump family business empire. This is an established firm. It’s backed by Goldman Sachs and Chevron, coincidentally. The Charles Schwab family is involved. These are very mainstream financial people in the United States. So you really see the Trumps increasingly integrating their business empire within, you know, the, quote-unquote, “real economy” in the U.S., as well as mainstream finance.
AMY GOODMAN: But this is very serious for people to understand. AI data centers require massive amounts of energy, sometimes equivalent to what you would power a whole small city. And if you’re talking about nuclear fusion, some have said that this energy source is decades away from actually manifesting itself. But if he’s also in charge of the regulation, or, more importantly, the deregulation of it, who’s going to be in control of this?
DAVID UBERTI: The company claims that it can reach operations by 2031, which would be light speed, as per what you said previously. This is commercially unproven technology. There is capital behind this company now to make this all happen. But that said, it’s kind of a moonshot, which follows sort of a well-worn path, if you were to sort of step back and look at the Trump interests, broadly speaking. They play in very speculative, highly risky corners of financial markets. And this is definitely one of those areas.
AMY GOODMAN: And the idea that the executive order says you cannot regulate AI data centers? I mean, a lot of the activism around the country now is around communities deeply concerned about these energy centers. President Trump is saying this would now be against the law.
DAVID UBERTI: Right. Those community organizations in different places around the country, which I visited, they are anathema to this idea of building out data centers as quickly as possible. You add in the element of the administration being very antagonistic toward renewable energy, things like solar and wind power—solar, in particular, is very proven and quite cheap in some circumstances—and instead being all-in on fossil fuels, which are obviously more polluting in many circumstances, as well as this more unproven technology of nuclear, which the U.S. has a very checkered history with.
AMY GOODMAN: We have to leave it there, but we’re going to do Part 2 after the show. David Uberti of The Wall Street Journal. I’m Amy Goodman.
COMMENTS