With a current net worth of $3 billion, Donald Trump has made a very healthy $600 million since his presidency. Read on to discover how The Donald's making money now outside the White House as he mulls another potential bid for the presidency, and what he spends his cash on.
The former president continues to profit from the swaths of property he owns across the world, including 125,000 square feet of commercial real estate near Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. During his presidency Donald Trump raked in an impressive $781 million from his commercial real estate portfolio, and during the COVID-19 pandemic Trump's commercial real estate investments have helped keep his finances afloat.
Trump benefited from long-term commercial tenants locked into long leases. In fact, in two office building locations – 555 California Street (Trump has a 30% share) and New York City’s 1290 Avenue of the Americas – rent in 2020 actually increased, quite a feat considering most businesses pivoted to working from home models and many offices were empty.
However, Trump may be concerned about the future of his commercial real estate interests. These assets make up three-quarters of his fortune but have an estimated $1.3 billion in debt tied up in them, $738 million of which is due within the next few years, according to Forbes in October last year. Trump is pictured here in 1980 with a model of what is arguably the most famous building his organization has built: Trump Tower.
Trump also boasts a bulging residential real estate portfolio, with more than 500 units across America, which had an estimated value of $235 million at the beginning of 2020 but dropped to $148 million due to the impact of COVID-19. More recent figures from Investopedia suggest his global residential real estate is now worth $340 million.
Trump also leases residences he’s not occupying, which is quite the money-spinner. During 2017, the former president rented out his estate Chateau des Palmiers on the Caribbean island of St. Martin for an eye-watering rate of up to $20,000 per night.
The property tycoon may have moved out of America’s most famous house, but he has plenty of other million-dollar residences to choose from, including the Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, which Trump allegedly bought in 1985 for $10 million.
The value of the 58-bedroom property has since skyrocketed to $350 million, according to the most recent estimates by Forbes. In fact, it's one business interest that wasn't too greatly impacted by Trump's presidency, bringing in $22.9 million in 2020, up from $22.3 million in 2015. But the estate, which means 'sea-to-lake' in Spanish, hit troubled waters this month when the FBI raided it for classified documents it suspected Trump had taken from the White House.
That said, even the ongoing investigation has proved profitable for Trump. According to The Washington Post, Trump received up to $1 million the day after the raid, as his fundraising team sent emails to supporters to ask for donations. One email claimed: "We need EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN PATRIOT to take action and bolster our Official Trump Defense Fund. This is the ONLY way to DEFEND President Trump and help him SAVE AMERICA."
Other properties belonging to Donald Trump include Seven Springs in New York, and his home on the Caribbean island of St. Martin (pictured), reportedly worth $13 million. Trump is also believed to own two homes in Sterling, Virginia with a combined value of $1.5 million, along with two other properties in Palm Beach in addition to Mar-a-Lago.
Trump's hotels didn't fare quite so well during the COVID-19 pandemic due to reduced travel. However, Trump's Washington DC hotel (pictured) was causing problems even before the pandemic. Between 2017 and 2019, revenues sat at around $52 million a year, and there wasn't really enough profit to cover the interest on the $170 million loan on the hotel from Deutsche Bank. When the pandemic hit, the hotel saw revenues fall below $20 million. Trump has since sold it for a reported $375 million to investment fund CGI Merchant Group, which reportedly planned to remove his name from it.
In 1999, Donald Trump acquired his first golf course, the Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, and Trump Golf has since expanded to include 16 locations in the US, Scotland, Ireland and Dubai, with two sites in Indonesia and another Dubai course coming soon. During his time in office, the then-president raked in an impressive $943 million in revenue from his golf courses and members’ clubs, according to Forbes.
However, as with the rest of his real estate, Trump’s golf and club resorts saw revenues drop during the pandemic due to stay-at-home orders, falling 27% in 2020 to an estimated $190 million. Trump reportedly has $18 million in debts from his golf interests, and $330 million from his resorts and hotels. That said, figures from CNN suggest his golf clubs and resorts have now gone back up in value to $650 million.
A whole host of products and companies came under the Trump umbrella, and the value of the Trump brand has been hotly disputed over the years.
After the Capitol riot, Trump Plaza in Florida’s West Palm Beach voted to drop Trump’s name, and New York City is attempting to stop his contracts for ice rinks, a carousel, and a golf course. Donald Trump claimed that his name was worth $3 billion in 2011, while Forbes reported that a more modest $200 million was a better estimate. More recently, Forbes has said it's probably worth just $60 million.
And Trump doesn't just make money in the business world; he also boosts his political bank balance through fundraising events. In May this year, Trump hit headlines when it was revealed that he'd hosted a $75,000-a-head fundraiser at Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby. The event was held in aid of his Super PAC (political action committee) 'MAGA Again!', a pro-Trump group that's suspected to be raising funds for a potential presidential bid in 2024.
Political action committee Make America Great Again, Again! will host a fundraising dinner on 14 September where guests can have their photo taken with Trump for a modest $100,000. The candlelit dinner will take place at Trump’s lavish Bedminster golf club in New Jersey, and private golf opportunities with the former POTUS are available upon request, though they will no doubt come with a hefty cost attached.
On Presidents Day, Trump launched his hotly-anticipated social media network called Truth Social. Or at least that was what was claimed. The first project of the Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), Truth Social was created "to stand up to the tyranny of Big Tech" after Trump's Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts were suspended in the wake of the Capitol riots.
Instead of tweets, users are invited to post 'Truths' on the network and 'ReTruth' other people's if they agree. But for weeks after the app was released, frustrated users reported that although it was possible to download the app and sign up for an account, nobody was able to access the network itself. The 'true' launch was delayed until March, with Trump finally posting his first proper Truth in April.
However, despite confusion over the launch, Truth Social has proven quite the money-spinner for Trump – who has publicly announced that he won't return to Twitter following Elon Musk's takeover bid, but will stick to his own social network. According to research quoted in Russia Today, shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC) – the merger company launching the network in collaboration with TMTG – were trading at $73.12 on 24 January.
Not only was that way above the $10 IPO price; it also made DWAC the best-performing special-purpose acquisitions company (SPAC) in history. Truth Social was also the most popular free app in the app store on 21 February, even though its 'Truth Sayers' (users) couldn't actually use the site. Forbes estimates that it's boosted his wealth by $430 million.
But its clunky launch wasn't the only problem Truth Social has encountered. In June, DWAC was placed under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, both of which have raised concerns over the nature of its merger with TMTG. Subpoenas have been issued to directors at TMTG, a position which – until recently – Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr both held. The pair stepped back from the board just a few weeks before the subpoenas were issued.
Late last year, Trump signed a multimillion-dollar book deal with Winning Team Publishing, a company set up by Republican operative Sergio Gor and Donald Trump Jr. Our Journey Together is a coffee table book featuring "never before seen photos" from Trump's presidency, each accompanied by a caption written by Trump himself. The initial print run of 200,000 copies sold out in a matter of weeks, with some signed versions selling for up to $1,749 online. Since it went on sale, the book has grossed more than $20 million.
Donald Trump’s interest in gold isn’t purely esthetic – it's also been reported that he owns thousands of dollars’ worth of the precious metal in a financial capacity. In 2015, the then-Republican candidate nominee submitted financial statements to the Federal Election Commission, which listed gold assets worth between $100,001 and $200,000. Trump also accepted gold bullion in place of a lease deposit from a tenant of his 40 Wall Street building in a highly-publicized event in 2011.
Having avoided two possible impeachments during his presidency, Donald Trump is also still entitled to all of the perks of post-presidency life, which include a $199,000 annual pension, as well as travel expense allowances, staff and personal security for life.
Now let's take a look at what Trump spends his fortune on...
Donald Trump is known for his decadent taste in décor, with the interiors of his Fifth Avenue penthouse reportedly inspired by the Palace of Versailles. The apartment is adorned with gold candelabras, classical paintings and designer furniture. Cash was most recently splashed on renovations at Mar-a-Lago ahead of the former president’s departure from the White House. The alterations won’t have come cheap, as they were rumored to have featured large quantities of dark wood and white marble.
It’s safe to say that the 45th president of the United States has a penchant for luxury, and that also applies to how he travels. Trump’s air fleet includes a Boeing 757 – nicknamed Trump Force One – with fuel costs that rocket into the thousands of dollars per hour of flying. The airliner was allegedly bought in 2010 for $100 million to replace Trump’s older plane – an $8 million Boeing 727 bought in the 1980s.
In March this year, Trump Force One was forced to make an emergency landing and Trump announced that he would be replacing the aircraft. In an email to supporters, he reportedly wrote: "I have a very important update on my plane, but I need to trust that you won’t share it with anyone: my team is building a BRAND NEW Trump Force One. The construction of this plane has been under wraps – not even the fake news media knows about it – and I can’t wait to unveil it for everyone to see."
Also among the fleet is a 1997 Cessna Citation X jet, which would have been worth around $15.3 million new, along with three Sikorsky helicopters, which will typically set a buyer back between $5 million and $7 million. In true Trump style, the aircraft are lavishly decked out. Trump Force One boasts gold-plated seat belts and a bathroom with golden sinks, while a refurbishment of one helicopter in the early 2010s saw the interiors finessed with 24-carat gold-plated hardware at a cost of $750,000. That said, Bloomberg has estimated that Trump's collection of aircraft has fallen in value by 59% since 2016, and is now worth $31 million.
Trump also has a pretty impressive garage, featuring various top-of-the-line cars including a vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Ferrari, a Maybach, and a Mercedes-Benz 3600, according to Business Insider. The billionaire has always had a taste for flash cars – pictured is the 1987 Mercedes Cabrio bought by Trump and his late first wife Ivana in the late 1980s.
While most of the funds for a presidential campaign come from candidate committees and outside groups, such as super political action committees (PACs), some candidates choose to throw their own money into the mix too. Donald Trump injected $66 million of his fortune into his $322 million bid for the presidency in 2016, although $11 million of that amount went back into Trump-related interests, such as Trump Organization-owned hotels and his private jet. In 2020 Trump chose not to donate any of his own money to his re-election efforts, making him the first billionaire candidate not to do so.
But running for office reportedly led Trump and his allies to pay out $58.4 million in legal and compliance work between 2015 and 2020, according to a study undertaken by The New York Times and the nonpartisan Campaign Finance Institute. Anyone running for president has to pay some fees of this nature, but Trump's spending was particularly high as his campaign donations also had to cover the costs of lawyers trying to block the Californian law requesting Trump's tax returns, the creation of non-disclosure agreements, as well as legal costs surrounding the Russia links investigation.
And more than $1 million was spent on paying damages to a former staffer who had lodged a complaint of sexual harrassment against another aide. While this money was covered by political donations, rather than Trump's own money, it's notable that Trump used the cash to cover personal and business interests, as well as political, in a rather unprecedented move.
In 2016 Donald Trump promised he would donate all of his salary if elected as president, and he stuck to his word. Each quarter a different federal agency received a $100,000 check on his behalf. After tax deductions Trump’s take-home salary would have been closer to $78,000, so it’s likely the then-president dipped into his own finances to donate a round $100,000 every three months, or $1.6 million over the four-year term. Trump also donated a total of $130 million to charity between 2005 and 2020 according to his tax returns, although $119.3 million of that was in conservation easements, which involve donating land development rights to a conservation charity while retaining ownership of the land and gaining considerable tax benefits in the process.
If Donald Trump wasn’t in the White House during his term in office, you could almost certainly find him on a golf course. He made an estimated 298 golf outings during his presidency, at an alleged cost of around $145 million to the American taxpayer. The expenses covered travel, overnight stays and the extensive security detail he required as head of state. Now that he has left the White House, Trump will be picking up most of those costs himself, although former presidents are afforded life-long security protection as part of their retirement package.
As a man who is always in the spotlight, appearance is incredibly important to Donald Trump. The former president has long had an affinity for Brioni menswear, and while it was supplied free of charge during his run on The Apprentice, Trump started to pay for his suits during the 2016 presidential campaign. Each suit costs him between $5,250 and $6,900. The former president’s tax returns also revealed that $70,000 had been spent on styling his hair while he was on the hit TV show, all of which had been claimed back as expenses. It appears that being camera-ready is no cheap pursuit if you’re Donald Trump.
From suave suits to lawsuits. Donald Trump has had a fair few run-ins with the law during his lengthy career, and had been involved in a total of 3,500 legal actions across federal and state courts before he first ran for office in 2016, according to USA Today. The best-known and priciest was the Trump University litigation. He was slapped with a $25 million settlement fee in 2016 to repay students who had paid $35,000 for ‘get rich quick’ classes, which failed to deliver and were described as “fraudulent” by an attorney general.
Having lost the protections afforded by the White House, Trump is set to be stung financially by the current investigations into him and the Trump Organization. Although we don't know the financial details of every lawsuit, the legal fees and potential payouts could cost Trump millions, especially if they last years.
While Donald Trump infamously told the Fox & Friends talk show that his birthday gift for wife Melania in 2018 was “a very nice card” as he’s too “busy to be running out looking for presents,” the rest of the former president’s family doesn’t appear to be too hard-up when it comes to benefitting from Trump’s wealth.
Donald and Melania Trump’s only son together, 15-year-old Barron, attended St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Maryland during his father’s presidency, at a cost of $40,000 a year. He now goes to the Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach, Florida, which costs $34,800 a year.
The teenager (pictured with Melania and half-sister Ivanka in 2009) is very accustomed to a life of luxury and, when he was just seven years old, Melania told ABC News that she lathered him in her now-defunct brand of caviar moisturizer each night before bed. Barron also enjoys his own floor of the triplex Trump Tower penthouse when the family is living in New York and has received a plethora of gifts thanks to his father’s celebrity, including a chandelier from Ellen DeGeneres and a horse from the former President of Mongolia.
Sharing his father’s name could be a blessing or a curse for Donald Trump Jr, but it has highlighted something that his father doesn’t splash the cash on, and that’s gifts. Donald Jr. often received second-hand monogrammed presents that had been given to the former president but then passed onto him given that they share the same initials, according to an interview with Extra TV.
Ivanka Trump (pictured right) is the richest of the Trump siblings, having built up a fashion empire alongside her dealings at the family business, giving her a net worth of around $375 million. She also seems to have inherited her father’s affinity for expensive grooming services, as a sum of $95,464 was among the expenses in the 2020 reveal of Donald Trump’s finances. Tiffany (pictured left) is the only grown-up Trump child who isn't involved in the family business – instead she attended Georgetown Law school until 2020, at a cost of around $69,000 per academic year.
Now see where Donald Trump ranks among the richest world leaders of all time