With the indirect sway of the presidency behind it, Donald Trump‘s real estate business is seeing greater success than ever during his second term.
The Trump Organization, managed by his two eldest sons, was able to pay off its remaining debts on 40 Wall Street, the 932-foot-tall skyscraper commonly referred to as The Trump Building, as reported last month by Reuters. As the outlet noted, the ability to repay the estimated $114 million balance, despite the building’s long-running issues with occupancy, underscores “how the business’ fortunes have improved since Trump’s re-election last year.”
A financial disclosure released in mid-June revealed that Trump was far from struggling prior to his second term, reporting more than $600 million in income—boosted by cryptocurrency ventures and royalties from Trump-branded products—and listed assets in excess of $1.6 billion. The filing did not specify the reporting period. Reuters said that details suggested it likely covered the 2024 calendar year.
But it is the success of his businesses since reelection and inauguration that have raised questions from lawmakers and ethics watchdogs, who allege that this represents at best an appearance of impropriety and at worst an avenue for foreign influence over the executive branch and government policy.
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“Trump’s second term has zero guardrails separating the Oval Office from Trump’s board room,” said Scott Amey, general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a nonpartisan watchdog based in Washington.
Amey cited the new hotels and resorts on which The Trump Organization has broken ground since his victory in November. Many of the projects are international, with deals struck for luxury resorts in Qatar, skyscrapers in Saudi Arabia and several Trump-branded office projects and residential buildings in India.
The watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) calculated that The Trump Organization will have completed or embarked on at least 30 projects abroad by the time Trump’s second term ends, covering more than a dozen countries and potentially yielding billions for the organization and the president’s family.
In May, Bloomberg estimated that since the start of his 2024 reelection campaign, the Trump brand has driven more than $10 billion in real estate projects worldwide while doubling the president’s personal net worth to more than $5 billion.
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The success has drawn scrutiny, with many raising concerns about the potential conflicts of interest that arise when a sitting official’s private enterprises appear to benefit directly from his public office.
“Trump’s willingness to use the presidency toward his self-enrichment—from peddling his own meme coin to selling access through glitzy dinners and accepting luxury aircraft from foreign nations—has diminished the office and will become a weak, golden pillar of his presidential legacy,” said Mark Updegrove, presidential historian and author of Make Your Mark: Lessons in Character from Seven Presidents.
Richard Painter, a former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush, told Newsweek that “the scale of the president’s financial conflicts of interest is much greater in his second term.” Painter, who was involved in a 2017 lawsuit against Trump for alleged violations of the U.S. Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments clause, cited the president’s entry into the crypto space as an especially concerning development in his second term.
“The President is working to secure GOOD deals for the American people, not for himself,” White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly told Newsweek. “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public – which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media.”
“President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest,” she added.
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Prior to Trump taking office in January, The Trump Organization voluntarily released a white paper outlining how the president would draw a separation between his public office and private businesses to allay some of the fears. It said that Trump would surrender any involvement in his real estate empire during his second term and that the company will “not enter into any new material transactions or contracts with a foreign government,” with the exception of those “necessary for the normal and ordinary operations of the company’s businesses.”
In May, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said it was “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.” White House Communications Director Steven Cheung previously told Newsweek that “everything “President Trump does is to benefit the American people,” while praising Trump for giving up “a life as one of the most successful businessmen in the world and a wildly successful media mogul.”
However, experts who spoke to Newsweek said that, far from surrendering the more lucrative opportunities in the private sphere, Trump’s return to office has buoyed his family’s business and set up the president for a financially comfortable transition once his second term ends.
“He saw what happened when the Clintons left office, and he is cashing in now,” Amey said. “Unfortunately, senior leaders who called out the Bidens are now sitting silent when all of Trump’s business deals are likely steering domestic and foreign policy, national security affairs and regulations in a way that favors his business endeavors.”