'Corrupt grift': Observers slam blockbuster revelation about Trump's finances
U.S. President Donald Trump disembarks Air Force One, as he arrives to attend the world leader meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in The Hague, at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol in Schiphol, Netherlands, June 24, 2025. REUTERS/Piroschka Van De Wouw
According to Forbes, President Donald Trump's net worth, as of July 2, 2025, is roughly $5.1 billion. Estimates of Trump's net worth vary, but one thing they have in common is showing Trump growing even richer during his second presidency.
In 2024, however, Trump had his share of financial problems — from huge legal bills to massive civil judgements against him.
The New York Times' Russ Buettner, in an article published on July 2, examines the financial challenges Trump faced last year and his ability to overcome them.
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"Last spring, even as Donald J. Trump’s march back toward the White House dominated public attention, his finances, largely out of view, faced serious threats," Buettner reports. "His office building in Lower Manhattan generated too little cash to cover its mortgage, with the balance coming due. Many of his golf courses regularly lacked enough players to cover costs."
Buettner continues, "The flow of millions of dollars a year from his stint as a television celebrity had mostly dried up. And a sudden wave of legal judgments threatened to devour all his cash. Then, with his clinching of the Republican nomination, everything began to change."
After he won the 2024 election, the Times journalist notes, his "family business," the Trump Organization, "announced numerous new deals that would financially benefit Mr. Trump directly." And critics view some of those deals as conflicts of interest.
"Most glaringly," Buettner reports. "Mr. Trump is now both a partner in several crypto ventures and, as president, crypto's chief policy regulator, and he has signaled that he wants his administration to have a hands-off approach to digital currencies."
"Today, those moves are seen by Mr. Trump's detractors as a money grab of historic proportions," Buettner continues. "But an analysis by The New York Times of thousands of pages of internal Trump Organization documents filed in one of the legal actions against him suggests a more urgent motivation for Mr. Trump's behavior: a need, rather than simply a desire, for easy money to keep his empire intact."
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Buettner's reporting is a topic of discussion on X, formerly Twitter.
Criminal defense attorney Scott Greenfield tweeted, "Trump was on the balls of his a—— financially until he was re-elected. Now he's making tons of money by selling access and favors and Trump-branded tchotchkes to fools."
X user Nino Brodin posted, "Contrary to the president’s assertions, records filed in a fraud case against him suggest that his riches were not the product of a steady and strong empire.
Another X user Photogater posted, "I'm hoping he sees prison time for all of this corrupt grift."
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Read Russ Buettner's full New York Times article at this link (subscription required).
