Companies have spent about $80 million on projects benefitting the Trump family and the Trump presidential library since his return to the White House, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The staggering amount shows how much financial power the Trump name brings. The $80 million comes from various areas including donations and lawsuit settlements. The money will add to the Trumps’ fortune and help cover costs such as his presidential library.
After President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump joined Amazon founder Jeff Bezos for dinner at Mar-a-Lago in December, Amazon spent $40 million on a documentary series the first lady pitched during the dinner. It was the most Amazon had ever spent on a documentary — the second-highest offer came from Disney, who offered $14 million. Netflix and Apple didn’t bid on the film.
A spokesperson for Amazon told The Journal: “We licensed the upcoming Melania Trump documentary film and series for one reason and one reason only—because we think customers are going to love it.”
The first lady’s share of the $40 million is more than 70 percent, the outlet reported. The First Lady’s agent has also been trying to sell sponsorships for the film, starting at $10 million, without Amazon being aware.
The deal with Amazon is one way of many that the Trump family has profited from their White House return.
Defendants have settled lawsuits that Trump filed previously, and corporations joined new business ventures, such as the documentary. The $80 million figure doesn’t include possible gains from crypto businesses.
A lot of the legal settlement funds will go to the presidential library, while Trump’s share of the $10 million settlement that X agreed to this week is set to go directly to him, people familiar with the agreement told The Journal.
The family’s efforts to make money go beyond that of Trump’s first term when he was criticized by watchdogs and Democrats.
First-term Trump administration top attorney turned critic Ty Cobb told the paper that the president is taking bolder steps this time to make money.
“Everything he does is either to be vengeful or to accumulate wealth, power, and adulation,” said Cobb, adding that Trump views it as an opportunity that “all these people want a piece of him.”
Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization, said last month that the company “is dedicated to not just meeting but vastly exceeding its legal and ethical obligations during my father’s presidency.”
Donald Trump - who has an estimated net worth of about $2 billion - said in his first term that his company would not make foreign agreements with governments and private partners, but the Trump Organization is now open to working with foreign companies, according to The Journal.
Eric Trump indicated a month before the election that he’s less willing to work to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest compared to Trump’s first term.
“I tried to do everything right in 2016, and I got very little credit for it,” he told The Journal at the time.
President Trump fired David Huitema, the director of the Office of Government Ethics, on Monday. He was less than two months into a term lasting five years.
The ex-official told the paper that Trump appears to be ignoring the pretense of adhering to guidelines during his second time in the White House.
“Recognizing that these kinds of questions will come up over the next four years, the president just didn’t want an OGE with the independence and status to raise the importance of these issues and insist on adherence to the law,” Huitema told The Journal. “It seems like he’s a lot more casual and kind of brazen this time around.”
About half of the money that has come in for the Trumps after the election comes from pushing old perceived enemies in Silicon Valley and in the media to settle lawsuits alleging censorship and defamation. While the cases had been stalling, the election turned things on its head, with Trump feeling he now had significant leverage, those familiar with his thoughts told the paper.
Attorney John Coale strategized with the president-elect regarding mentioning their lawsuit against Meta ahead of a visit to Mar-a-Lago in November by Mark Zuckerberg. The suit was filed more than three years before, alleging that Meta had violated Trump’s free speech rights following the suspension of his Facebook account after the 2021 Capitol riot.
A person familiar with the conversation told The Journal that Trump indicated during dinner that the lawsuit had to be resolved if Zuckerberg wanted things to be “kumbaya going forward.”
Settlement talks soon began, and Meta agreed to pay $25 million, with $22 million going to the Trump presidential library.
