Follow the money: Trump stock purchases align perfectly with favors to drugmaker

U.S. President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

President Donald Trump earlier this year bought as much as $680,000 in stock of Eli Lilly, the maker of blockbuster obesity drugs, as the agencies he oversees undertook an agenda that largely benefited the company.

On May 14, the federal government released ethics disclosures revealing a list of stock and bond trades made on Trump’s behalf from January to March of this year. They included extensive trades across the economy, including investments in tech giants such as Microsoft and Nvidia, aerospace firms such as Boeing, and household-name companies such as Target and Chipotle.

In healthcare, however, the trades for Lilly — a company valued by the stock market at just under $1 trillion — stand out. That’s because the timing of Trump’s purchases coincides with several favorable government decisions benefiting the drugmaker’s GLP-1 business, including progress toward a long-held goal: qualifying the drugs for reimbursement from Medicare, the government health insurance program primarily serving seniors, when they are prescribed for weight loss.

The disclosure forms — which bear Trump’s distinct signature — give ranges rather than exact dollar amounts for the trades. They show seven purchases of Lilly stock made on the president’s behalf through the end of March, the first of which occurred on Jan. 6.

During that period, and just afterward, several Trump administration initiatives ultimately benefited Lilly. Perhaps the biggest was an initiative from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which was proposing a pilot program — a temporary “bridge,” potentially followed by permanent reimbursement — through which Medicare patients would pay $50 a month for GLP-1 drugs.

The deadline for drug manufacturers to submit applications indicating their interest in participating was Jan. 8. Lilly has since been named as a participating manufacturer in the program, calling it a “significant milestone.”

Another purchase on Feb. 10, of West Pharmaceutical Services stock valued between $250,000 and $500,000, was similarly a bet on the GLP-1 market. The company, which manufactures injectable devices for drugs, credited growth in its GLP-1 business with driving increased revenue in its most recent quarter.

Lilly declined to comment. West Pharmaceutical Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A spokesperson at the Department of Health and Human Services declined to comment, referring KFF Health News to the White House. A White House spokesperson referred questions to the Trump Organization — the holding company for most of the president’s businesses — which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In response to other outlets’ questions about Trump’s stock trades, the Trump Organization has said the investments are controlled by independent brokers.

It is unclear from the disclosures whether Trump directed any of the trades himself. Four of the Lilly stock purchases are marked “unsolicited,” though the Office for Government Ethics did not immediately respond to a request for clarification on the use of that term.

Trump’s assets are in a trust held by his children, and Trump Organization spokespeople have said in the past that neither the president nor his children play a role in “selecting, directing, or approving” specific investments.

Eric Trump, the president’s son and a Trump Organization executive, said May 15 on X: “To suggest that individual stocks are being bought or sold, at the discretion of any member of the Trump family, would be a lie and blatantly false.”

He claimed the purchases of index funds account for the investments. The disclosures record purchases of funds and individual stocks.

Lilly had a strong 2025, finishing with $65 billion in revenue, up $20 billion from the year before. GLP-1 drugs accounted for a substantial portion of that total.

At the beginning of 2026, the drugmaker said it expected another surge in revenue this year, above $80 billion. It was a “stunning” projection, analysts at the bank Citi said.

Analysts for the financial services firm TD Cowen said the Medicare and Medicaid market would be critical to making it happen. “Guidance anticipates favorable impact from Medicare coverage of obesity medications by 7/1/26,” the analysts noted.

Historically, Medicare hasn’t covered obesity drugs. In a May 2025 open letter, noting unfavorable reimbursement decisions across government and private-run insurance, Lilly said: “This isn't about just one medicine, formulary, or insurance plan. It’s about a system that limits patients’ and health care providers’ ability to choose an obesity management treatment plan that is best for them.”

Key to that market was the pilot program rolled out by CMS, called BALANCE, aimed at helping Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries improve their health. Last fall, 12% of U.S. adults reported currently using GLP-1s, according to a KFF poll, and 56% of those who had used GLP-1s found the medications — prescribed to treat diabetes and aid weight loss — hard to afford.

The appearance of a potential conflict of interest is enough to trouble ethics experts.

“A president who buys or sells the stock of a company whose value is affected by his administration’s actions undermines the public’s trust in two ways,” said Kathleen Clark, a legal ethicist at Washington University in St. Louis.

First, she said, the public should believe government actions are motivated by common good, not personal enrichment. And second, the public should believe that those within government aren’t benefiting from inside information.

A ban on stock trading by the president would require an act of Congress, though some lawmakers have resisted such legislation. Members of Congress are also permitted to buy and sell stocks.

Trump’s White House and HHS boosted GLP-1s throughout the first few months of the year. In February, the government unveiled TrumpRx, a web portal directing patients to lower-price versions of some drugs, with some terms and conditions.

The website offers Zepbound for as low as $299 a month and points patients to LillyDirect, the drug company’s telemedicine service prescribing the drug. Company executives haven’t commented on TrumpRx specifically, but they have touted the telemedicine service. Lilly’s 2025 annual filing to the Securities and Exchange Commission said LillyDirect was a “growing portion of our business.”

Also, in February the FDA intensified a broad crackdown on “compounded” GLP-1s — drugs manufactured by pharmacies that are cheaper and, critics charge, often unsafe alternatives to Lilly’s branded products.

The agency made another favorable decision for Lilly in April, approving its Foundayo weight loss pill under its Commissioner’s National Priority Voucher program. The program was launched by FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, who had promised to approve high-priority drugs in record time. Foundayo was approved in 50 days after filing.

“This approval demonstrates what the FDA can achieve when we eliminate delays and prioritize fast and thorough work from the agency and industry partners,” Makary, who stepped down last week, said in an April news release.

Not all agency decisions were favorable. The FDA asked Lilly to provide additional safety data regarding liver toxicity in Foundayo, though analysts don’t appear particularly troubled. The company has told news outlets that no negative safety signals have been observed.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

This article first appeared on KFF Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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