Donald Trump has transferred all 114.75 million of his shares in the parent company that runs his Truth Social platform into a revocable trust before he returns to the White House.
His shares in Trump Media & Technology Group are currently worth roughly $4 billion, representing the lion’s share of his roughly $6 billion net worth. He is the group’s largest shareholder.
Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission show the president-elect transferring the stake into the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust earlier this week. His oldest son Donald Trump Jr is the sole trustee, and has sole voting and investment power over securities held by the trust, according to filings.
Trump remains the “sole beneficiary” of the trust.
The president-elect has come under fire from ethics groups, lawmakers and government watchdogs for a web of potential conflicts of interest for his presidency. His appointees — many of them billionaires and uber-wealthy Wall Street figures with their own conflicts — will be tasked with regulating agencies and overseeing policy that could affect his profit margins, while the administration’s dealings with other countries could be a boon to his real estate empire and other financial interests.
Trump made a similar transfer of his assets, real estate holdings and liabilities into his namesake trust in 2017 before his first presidency, when he promised to hand control of his empire to his sons, donate his salary back to the government, and not pursue any new foreign business.
But the former president — whose Trust came under scrutiny in a years-long investigation into fraud within the Trump Organization — has spent the years since he left office engaging in new deals across his real estate and branding interests, from opening a new golf course to promoting Bibles and guitars and investing in cryptocurrency.
A legally required ethics plan for Trump’s incoming administration notably left out language on how those ethics requirements would apply to Trump himself.
“Without a clear plan, the American public is left in the dark about how Trump — a wealthy businessman with a real estate empire and ties to numerous industries — will navigate the potential conflicts of interest that may arise in his second term,” according to the Campaign Legal Center.
Trump has also nominated several Truth Social board chairs to his administration, including professional wrestling mogul Linda McMahon as Secretary of Education, and conspiracy theorist Kash Patel as the next director of the FBI.
Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes has also been selected to chair the incoming president’s intelligence advisory board.
