Obscene Corruption: How Trump Turned the Presidency into a $1,408,500,000 Grift

One year ago, Donald Trump took an oath to serve the American people. Instead, he has focused on using the presidency to enrich himself.

(Editor’s note: This commentary appeared in Jan. 20, 2026 editions of the New York Times. The Times Editorial Board, which expresses unsigned opinions on behalf of the news organization as an institution, is identified as “a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.” -jr).

By The New York Times Editorial Board

President Trump has never been a man to ask what he can do for his country. In his second term, as in his first, he is instead testing the limits of what his country can do for him.

He has poured his energy and creativity into the exploitation of the presidency — into finding out just how much money people, corporations and other nations are willing to put into his pockets in hopes of bending the power of the government to the service of their interests.

A review by the editorial board relying on analyses from news organizations shows that Mr. Trump has used the office of the presidency to make at least $1.4 billion. We know this number to be an underestimate because some of his profits remain hidden from public view. And they continue to grow.

• The Trumps have made at least $23 million from licensing Mr. Trump’s
  name overseas since his re-election

A hotel in Oman. An office tower in western India. A golf course on the outskirts of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

These are a few of the more than 20 overseas projects the Trump Organization is pursuing, often requiring cooperation with foreign governments. These deals have made millions for the Trumps, according to Reuters.

And the administration has sometimes treated those same governments favorably. One example: The administration agreed to lower its threatened tariffs on Vietnam about a month after a Trump Organization project broke ground on a $1.5 billion golf complex outside of Hanoi. Vietnamese officials ignored their own laws to fast-track the project.

• The Trumps are pocketing $28 million from Amazon for a documentary about Melania Trump.

Amazon paid far more for the rights to “Melania” than the next highest bidder — and far more than the company has previously paid for similar projects, according to The Wall Street Journal. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chairman and one of the world’s richest people, has many reasons to curry favor with the administration, including antitrust regulation, Amazon’s defense contracts and his space company’s federal contracts.

• Major tech and media companies have paid Mr. Trump $90.5 million in
  settlements since his re-election.

The settlements have come from X, ABC News, Meta, YouTube and Paramount. None of them were justified on the merits. Paramount, for example, agreed to pay the president $16 million for what he claimed was the deceptive editing of a 2024 Kamala Harris interview. The editing was a normal part of journalism. Three weeks later, the Federal Communications Commission approved an $8 billion merger with Skydance.

• Qatar gave Mr. Trump a $400 million jet that he will use as Air Force One
  while president and plans to take with him after leaving office.

Mr. Trump seemed to acknowledge that the gift would influence his treatment of Qatar. “We are going to protect this country,” he said in Doha shortly after Qatar offered the plane. Mr. Trump has said he expects to transfer the plane to his presidential library after leaving office.

• The Trumps have made at least $867 million through various cryptocurrencies.

Mr. Trump’s sale of crypto has been by far his biggest moneymaker, according to Reuters. People who hope to influence federal policy, including foreigners, can buy his family’s coins, effectively transferring money to the Trumps, and the deals are often secret. One that has become public: A United Arab Emirates-backed investment firm announced plans last year to deposit $2 billion into a Trump firm — two weeks before the president gave the country access to advanced chips.

• All told, Mr. Trump has profited from his return to the presidency by an amount of money equal to 16,822 times the median U.S. household income ($83,780).

Mr. Trump’s hunger for wealth is brazen. Throughout the nation’s history, presidents of both parties have taken care to avoid even the appearance of profiting from public service. This president gleefully squeezes American corporations, flaunts gifts from foreign governments and celebrates the rapid growth of his own fortune.

When President Harry Truman left office in 1953, he did not even own a car. He and his wife returned to Missouri by train and lived for a time on his Army pension. He refused to take any job that he regarded as commercializing his public service, explaining, “I knew that they were not interested in hiring Harry Truman, the person, but what they wanted to hire was the former president of the United States.”

This tally focuses on Mr. Trump’s documented gains. The $1.4 billion figure is a minimum, not a full accounting. It is probable that Mr. Trump has collected several hundred million dollars in additional profits from his cryptocurrency ventures over the past year. The Trumps have acknowledged as much.

When The Financial Times asked Eric Trump, one of the president’s sons, about its estimated value of the family’s crypto gains, he said they were probably even larger than the news organization thought.

Our accounting also does not include other ways in which the president has encouraged influence seekers to make donations that benefit him politically, including to his planned White House renovation. During the government shutdown, Mr. Trump even used a private gift to finance his policy priorities.

Other presidents did not behave this way.

Mr. Trump was already the wealthiest person to serve as president of the United States. He began his second term with a large portfolio of real estate holdings and an ownership stake in a social media company. Those businesses have benefited from his presidency.

His real estate company, for example, is making millions from deals licensing Mr. Trump’s name for use on new projects in foreign countries. Even more striking, however, are the enormous profits the Trump family has reaped by creating and selling cryptocurrencies, allowing Mr. Trump to collect money from those seeking his favor.

It is impossible to know how often Mr. Trump makes official decisions, in part or entirely, because he wants to be richer. And that is precisely the problem. A culture of corruption is pernicious because it is not just a deviation from government in the public interest; it is also the destruction of the state’s democratic legitimacy. It undermines the necessary faith that the representatives of the people are acting in the interest of the people.

Aristotle, writing more than 2,000 years ago, saw clearly and warned that a government whose leaders worked to enrich themselves might still call itself a republic, and might still go through the motions, but when the aim of government shifts from public good to private gain, its constitution becomes an empty shell. The government is no longer for the people.

The demands of avarice gradually corrupt the work of government as officials facilitate the accumulation of personal wealth. Worse, such a government corrupts the people who live under its rule. They learn by experience that they live in a society where the laws are written by the highest bidder.

They become less likely to obey those laws, and to participate in the work of democracy — speaking, voting, paying taxes. The United States risks falling into this cynical spiral as Mr. Trump hollows out the institutions of government for personal gain.

This editorial appeared in Jan. 20, 2026 editions of the New York Times. The Times Editorial Board expresses opinions on behalf of the newspaper as an institution and is identified as “a group of opinion journalists whose views are informed by expertise, research, debate and certain longstanding values. It is separate from the newsroom.”

Appended to the editorial was a note on its methodology:

“Methodology These numbers are based on publicly available information and analyses by news organizations. Licensing and crypto estimates are drawn from a Reuters analysis published in October; the estimate for both categories is based on data from the first half of 2025. $Melania meme coin estimates are drawn from The Financial Times. It is unclear how much of this money went to the Trumps and how much went to their business partners. “Melania” documentary estimates are drawn from The Wall Street Journal. Legal settlements and Qatari jet estimates are drawn from The New York Times. Some of the money from these settlements will go to Mr. Trump’s presidential library and other plaintiffs in the cases.The Trumps and their business partners have disputed some of these estimates, but we find the estimates to be more credible than the Trumps’ claims.”

Image: Photo illustration by The Week.