Eldest Trump Sons Could Soon Sell Millions In Stock Given For Brief Advisory Board Stint: SEC Filing

Forbes Breaking News

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump could soon sell a combined $9.6 million in stock they were awarded for serving 10 weeks on a once largely inactive advisory board, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing made public last month.  Read the full story here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/04/25/donald-jr-eric-trump-stock-sale-dominari-holdings-sec-filing/

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.

00:07Joining me now is my Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson.

00:10Zach, thanks so much for joining me.

00:13Thanks for having me back, Brittany.

00:14You and I have talked about this company before, Dominari Holdings,

00:19because Trump's eldest sons, Don Jr. and Eric Trump, sit on the advisory board.

00:24And we do know some details, thanks to you, now about other members of the advisory board.

00:29But before we get into those, talk to us exactly, what does this firm do?

00:35So Dominari Holdings is a holding company.

00:39They basically do a lot of different things.

00:42They started off as a pharmaceutical company before pivoting,

00:46and they have subsidiaries in wealth management, investment banking, sales and trading,

00:51asset management, capital investment.

00:54When they announced Don Jr. and Eric were joining their advisory board,

00:57they specifically mentioned interest in getting into crypto and AI.

01:02I mean, pharmaceuticals is a hop, skip and a jump away from AI and crypto.

01:07Is there any indication why this left turn?

01:11You know, I didn't look back that far in the findings.

01:14I just kind of stuck it one day since they've become Dominari Holdings.

01:17You know, it definitely seems like it's a company that's, its mission is making money,

01:23which I think is, you know, true for all companies.

01:25But this seems to be a little bit more on the nose with this group,

01:29that if they can figure out a way,

01:32problem pivoting behind and leaving a business model behind.

01:35And not only is it a company that you're saying its mission is to make money,

01:41it seems like the advisory board, they're making some money too.

01:44They're making a pretty penny.

01:46Trump's eldest sons, as we said, Don Jr. and Eric sit on this advisory board.

01:50Talk to us about three of the other members that we're seeing on it.

01:54Yeah, so this kind of eked out over the course of a few press releases, SEC filings.

02:00We were able to piece together that there are five new members of this advisory board.

02:05Now, before we get into it, advisory board is different from a board of directors.

02:09Board of directors has legal responsibilities that are spelled out.

02:12Advisory board can kind of do anything.

02:15You know, this group had it previous,

02:16this company had it previously when it was a pharmaceutical company.

02:19And at the time, I believe they were all like PhD or MDs advising it on medical issues.

02:23Whereas now, you know, the board of advisors,

02:26they're just asked to do consult if asked,

02:31suggest other people to join the advisory board,

02:33and, you know, maybe review proposals and things like that.

02:38All five of these new members, all of whom also received stock,

02:42are executive vice presidents with the Trump organization,

02:45which struck me as interesting because you would just assume advisory board,

02:49you want to get a wealth of different experience, like a real breadth of it,

02:52people with different sort of backgrounds.

02:54And instead, they ended up with five middle-aged white guys

02:57who are all Trump org EVPs, which was a little bit interesting.

03:02And, you know, when I reached out to them, they responded.

03:05They said, you know, we value diverse opinions and experience on this board,

03:09which is certainly at conflict with who is currently on the board.

03:14I mean, that's something that stuck out to me.

03:16And that was my next question for you.

03:17Is it typical to have an advisory board when you think of,

03:21especially a company saying, hey, we want diverse voices,

03:25to have people, five people,

03:27who all hold similar titles at the same organization?

03:33Yeah, I haven't looked into many other advisory boards beyond just this one.

03:37So I don't have a whole bunch of information on that.

03:41You've got to remember, they're not really regulated,

03:42so you could probably stock them with whomever you cared for.

03:44But it just really seemed counterintuitive to what the point of an advisory board would be.

03:50You know, you would imagine you would want to have a whole bunch of different backgrounds.

03:53You know, when you see a company with its board of directors,

03:56they will often tout how all these people came from different industries,

03:59have different backgrounds, different ages.

04:01So the fact that all five of these people are Trump org executives,

04:06vice presidents, is certainly interesting.

04:08And also something of note is that there was very little evidence of this board's existence

04:13before the Trumps popped up on the scene.

04:17So now there's little evidence that that existed.

04:19We see Don Jr. as well as Eric Trump.

04:21We also see other Trump org EVPs.

04:24What does all of this indicate to you, if anything?

04:28Yeah, it's really interesting.

04:30The advisory board was an ongoing issue when they had an ongoing entity, rather,

04:37when it was a pharmaceutical company.

04:38And looking through years of SEC filings, it was only mentioned a few times,

04:42and that was largely in regards to one of the officers of the company

04:46having served like three months on the advisory board.

04:49Like they worked that into his bio in SEC filings.

04:51And then all of a sudden, you've got them announcing,

04:53hey, we've added Don Jr. and Eric to our advisory board.

04:56And then you're seeing them adding these other people.

04:57So, you know, it certainly looks like it could be something that was reinvigorated,

05:04resuscitated to accommodate the Trumps and give them a way to be connected to the company

05:10without having any sort of legal requirements on work or responsibilities for that.

05:16I mean, that sounds like a sweet gig.

05:18You get paid, but you don't have those legal requirements like you would normally have

05:23as a board of directors or someone who sits on the board of directors, rather.

05:26So, collectively, how much are these Trump EVPs slash advisory board members making in their

05:33roles here?

05:35It's pretty absurd to be blunt.

05:37According to a look at the SEC filings, first reported by my friend Wendy Siegelman at

05:43Newstrack's newsletter, they owed about 20% of the company, assuming all of their warrants

05:49are also exercised, which is a substantial amount.

05:52Now, most of that, you will not be surprised to learn, went to Don Jr. and Eric.

05:56The other three executives got significantly smaller cuts.

05:59But, yeah, they're all doing well.

06:01This advisory board gig sounds, you know, like a good thing for any of them.

06:05I'd be happy to sign up for one of these if ever offered.

06:08So, the Trumps there have millions in stock here.

06:12And you have some new reporting on an SEC filing about when exactly they could potentially

06:18sell their stock.

06:19Talk to us about the details there.

06:20So, originally, they were supposed to wait six months to sell their shares, which they

06:26started acquiring in February, it looks like.

06:29Now, that is because they got them privately and directly from the company.

06:32They didn't get them on a public sale.

06:34So, you're supposed to hold those six months, according to a law professor at Wake Forest,

06:38who I spoke with.

06:39And the company recently filed a new registration statement with the SEC that took effect last

06:48Monday that would let them sell them a lot sooner than that, namely as soon as that went

06:53affected.

06:53So, we're talking just about a little bit under two months that they're able to sell it.

06:57Now, we haven't seen any signs of them selling their shares.

07:00And this is not just for the Trumps and the executive vice presidents.

07:03This includes, I think it's about 50 people who all acquired shares in the same manner,

07:08privately and directly from the company.

07:10And this frees them up to sell.

07:12But I've been tracking the volume of the company since that registration statement became effective.

07:17And I haven't seen any spikes that make it look like, you know, these people are dumping

07:21their shares.

07:21You know, they might be selling smaller amounts, but nothing major.

07:25It seems likely that if Don Jr. and Eric were to sell their shares, there would be an SEC

07:31filing required because they do own over 5% of the company.

07:35But whether that's something we'd find out immediately or might just take a couple months

07:40to find out depends on how any potential sale would be structured, you know, whether they

07:45dumped it all once or whether they did a little bit of a time.

07:49And so then if they didn't dump their stocks yet, according to anything, any evidence that

07:53you've seen before that six month thresholds, now the filing made it so that you could dump

07:58them earlier if they wanted to.

07:59What is the purpose then of this filing?

08:03Well, they still have the flexibility and it's not just them.

08:06It's all 50 of those people who are on there can sell their shares at any given time.

08:10You know, maybe they're not going to, maybe they're going to keep them down to their children.

08:14But they also now have flexibility to sell them, you know, immediately and they don't

08:20have to wait four more months.

08:22So it certainly seems like, you know, this law professor is saying it certainly seems

08:26like somebody wants to sell it sooner than having to wait the entire six months.

08:30You know, the mere fact the company went through the process of filing that registration statement.

08:35And you and I have talked before about the volume of trading that was described as interesting.

08:39Can you talk to us a little bit about that backtracked a few months ago?

08:44Yeah, yeah.

08:45Interesting is a great catch all for a lot of what we're seeing here.

08:48So this company, the trading volume was really low throughout 2024.

08:53And then right around the end of the year, about six weeks before they announced Don Jr.

08:59and Eric's involvement, trading shot up, volume shot up.

09:03And I couldn't figure out why I went back and I looked through news clippings, I looked

09:08through press releases, SEC filings, and there was nothing that I saw or that some other

09:13experts saw in there that would explain the huge spike.

09:17And it resulted with the shares actually hitting $6 a share the day before the announcement.

09:23Now, this was a share that had been trading anywhere from like $1 to $3.

09:26So it basically doubled before the announcement.

09:29And then after the announcement, it also went up to hit about $13.

09:33It has since fallen back down.

09:35The last I looked, it was trading in the mid $5 range.

09:38The other thing that was really interesting here is just before the announcement, like

09:42the day before, I believe, a lot of insiders, as well as Don Jr.

09:47and Eric loaded up on shares and that they were either acquired them through bonuses or through

09:52the private sales at a price that was well below what it would have cost to buy it on

09:57the open market once this news was announced.

09:59So in not insider trading, everybody who was part of each of that trade knew, you know,

10:04ostensibly would have known that Don Jr.

10:06and Eric were going to join the company or publicly be acknowledged as members of the

10:10advisory board the following day.

10:11But it certainly seems like they did take advantage of their knowledge of this and loaded

10:17up on shares on the cheap there.

10:19You caught my term of interesting.

10:22You know, one man's interesting is another man's ethical concerns.

10:26Are there any here?

10:27Because I mean, do these board members that are EVPs at the Trump organization, do they

10:31have the expertise to be getting this amount of stock?

10:35I mean, are there ethics concerns and what are they?

10:39Yeah, you obviously have ethics concerns anytime you're dealing with a company that involves

10:44the president's children where they're given millions of dollars of stock.

10:48I mean, their stakes, last I checked, were worth about $4.67 million.

10:53That's a substantial amount for these guys.

10:55It's a substantial amount for anyone.

10:57But, you know, Don Jr. and Eric are not their fathers.

10:59Last time we looked at them, they were worth, I think Don Jr. was worth about $50 million.

11:03Eric was worth around $40 million.

11:06The president's worth $5 billion.

11:08So, you know, getting $4 million worth of stock here is a substantial spike in their net worth.

11:15It's obviously interesting.

11:16Like, why are these people added?

11:17Were they added for their expertise?

11:19Now, the company has put out a press release where they talked about a business partnership

11:24they got involved in.

11:25And the president of the company cited Eric's expertise with making this deal happen.

11:30So, it sounds like, you know, he was involved in that regard.

11:33Now, did that work merit what could be a $4-plus million payday?

11:38Don't know.

11:40Well, certainly I know you will keep your eye on this story.

11:44And we will continue to talk about updates as they come in.

11:47Zach Everson, thanks for joining me.

11:49Thanks for having me back.

12:00Thanks for having me.

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