Donald Trump, long before entering the White House, was a brand—a gilded persona cultivated through television appearances, extravagant properties, and a vast array of products bearing his name.
Now, that brand has expanded into a media empire and cryptocurrency ventures, adding billions to Trump’s estimated net worth and drawing renewed scrutiny.
During Trump’s presidency, concerns swirled around potential conflicts of interest arising from his continued ownership of his businesses.
Critics alleged that foreign dignitaries staying at Trump’s hotels during state visits created opportunities to curry favor. Trump, in response, said that he took steps to distance himself from his holdings, such as placing some of his assets in a revocable trust managed by his son Donald Jr.
Looking back, those concerns seem almost quaint compared to the new complexities of Trump’s expanding financial world.
His growing portfolio, now encompassing media and cryptocurrency, presents a multitude of new avenues through which Trump and his family can accumulate wealth, potentially with the help of political allies or business partners, and often shielded from public view.
The evolution of an empire: from concrete to crypto
While Trump built his initial fortune in real estate, transforming the New York City skyline, his empire now extends into the digital realm.
The one constant, however, remains the power of the Trump brand itself.
Whether it’s skyscrapers or social media platforms, the core product being sold is Donald Trump.
This brand reliance is particularly evident in his media venture, Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), and his foray into cryptocurrency with World Liberty Financial and the $Trump memecoin.
“There’s been a shift from this physical Trump brand to this online Trump brand,” Jordan Libowitz, vice president at the watchdog Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told Fortune.
A financial enigma: estimating Trump’s net worth
Bloomberg estimated Trump’s net worth at approximately $4.8 billion as of mid-March.
However, that figure does not include the potentially billions more that Trump stands to gain from his two crypto projects—a value that’s difficult to ascertain.
According to Fortune, a source close to Trump said his net worth was much higher than Bloomberg’s estimate, and that the $Trump coin is worth more than $10 billion. The source declined to provide calculations, and Fortune was unable to verify that figure.
However, as per Forbes, Trump’s net worth was around $3.7 billion as he entered his first term in office.
Untangling Trump’s finances: an opaque web
The convoluted structure of Trump’s private corporation and its latticework of limited liability companies (LLCs) and other entities make the sources and size of his wealth too murky to track.
Meanwhile, his crypto holdings, and their complex ownership structure, are almost totally opaque. Experts say TMTG stock, because of SEC reporting rules, provides a clearer view, but even here, the company only provides the bare minimum of information.
“The thing to remember about Trump’s finances is that it’s not like any other politician’s we’ve ever seen,” says Libowitz.
Everything is owned by a series of Russian-nesting-doll LLCs.
When Fortune reached for comment, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “President Trump handed over his multibillion-dollar empire in order to serve our country, and he has sacrificed greatly.”
She said he will continue to file annual financial disclosure reports and called concerns that Trump’s businesses might make him susceptible to influence “illegitimate and absurd,” adding:
Clearly the American people do not agree, or they would have not overwhelmingly reelected President Trump to the. White House.
And, she said, “the Trump name and brand is the most iconic it’s ever been.”
The Trump organization: a real estate legacy
The Trump Organization, now managed by his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, remains a major component of Trump’s wealth.
That sprawling real estate empire now stretches across four continents and comprises 20 golf courses and more than 30 buildings that Trump owns or licenses, according to the Trump Organization’s website.
The value of the Trump Organization’s real estate holdings is around $2.65 billion.
In 2021 Trump launched Trump Media & Technology Group. Over the next several years, Truth Social, as the Twitter clone was dubbed, would become TMTG’s flagship tech product.
From there, TMTG slowly branched out into other digital businesses. In 2024, the same year it went public, TMTG launched a streaming service, Truth+. And the company kicked off 2025 with the announcement that it was starting a fintech platform in partnership with Charles Schwab called Truth.Fi.
Despite closing 2024 with only $3.6 million in revenue and operating losses of $400 million, TMTG achieved a valuation that defies traditional financial metrics.
Truth Social also lags its mainstream social media competitors in popularity. In February, Truth Social had an average of 304,000 daily active users on its app in the US, according to data from market research firm Similarweb.
However, a spokesperson from TMTG condemned Fortune’s reporting on the company as inaccurate but did not offer specifics.
Still, TMTG’s lackluster income statement and relatively small user numbers have done little to scare off the roughly 650,000 retail investors who own the stock—many as a show of political support for Trump.
“What some people might keep bringing up as a pattern of problems, other people will see as—if not success—then at least demonstrations of remarkable resilience,” says Wharton School professor of marketing Cait Lamberton of the Trump brand.
TMTG is currently sitting on $777 million in cash and short-term investments and has only $25 million in total liabilities.
TMTG executives say the cash hoard will be put to use expanding the company into new lines of business.
Earlier this year, TMTG’s board approved a fund for the pursuit of possible acquisitions.
Trump and crypto: a new frontier
For Trump’s adventures in crypto, “NFTs were the gateway drug,” says David Krause, a business professor at Marquette University.
He realized digital assets were an opportunity.
After the crypto industry launched a $200 million campaign to back pro-blockchain candidates during the 2024 election, Trump began to embrace the sector, making speeches at industry events and announcing plans for initiatives like a government strategic reserve that would hold Bitcoin.
Trump and his sons began to tout a new crypto project called World Liberty Financial.
Though they provided few details, it soon emerged that the platform would allow accredited investors to buy a token native to the platform with no clear utility. A public sale went live in October.
One of the largest buyers has been Justin Sun, a Hong Kong–based crypto entrepreneur who faced a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission for fraud.
While crypto investors argue over the aims of World Liberty Financial Trump’s other foray into the crypto space—his self-branded memecoin—does not make any claims of utility.
Launched the Friday before his inauguration, on the day that a group of the industry’s top leaders was hosting a glitzy Crypto Ball in Washington, D.C., Trump’s memecoin offers speculators the opportunity to buy and trade an asset tied to the president.
According to blockchain analytics firm Chainalysis, Trump-affiliated entities have already made $350 million in revenue from trading fees and trading the token itself, though that figure does not include unrealized losses.
With crypto still largely outside the purview of government agencies, and the Trump administration advancing a deregulatory agenda, critics argue that Trump’s crypto projects present unprecedented opportunities for foreign officials and entities to invest in his enterprises outside the glare of public scrutiny.
“Is it grift, greed, or genius?” asks Krause.
In a way, it’s all three. There’s marketing genius behind this.
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