On "Forbes Newsroom," Staff Writer Zach Everson discussed his report showing that Donald Trump’s second term has seen three new ways—Trump Media & Technology Group, World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP meme coin—for allies, favor seekers, foreign firms and governments and pretty much anyone else to direct money to the president’s business empire.
READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/05/10/trump-truth-social-world-liberty-financial-meme-coin-crypto-media-bitcoin-blockchain/
READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/05/10/trump-truth-social-world-liberty-financial-meme-coin-crypto-media-bitcoin-blockchain/
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NewsTranscript
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.
00:15You and I have a very familiar conversation today.
00:18So I want to get right into it. I want to read, actually, the first graph of your reporting.
00:23This is what you wrote.
00:24So Donald Trump's second term has seen three new ways for allies, favor seekers, foreign firms and governments and pretty much anyone else to direct money to the president's business empire.
00:36And so while these are new names, you and I have talked about now for years, President Trump profiting off of his political career.
00:43So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about these three ways that you're reporting on.
00:47The first way is Trump Media and Technology Group.
00:50How can people funnel their money through there and then the president ends up eventually profiting?
00:58So Trump Media launched shortly after he was out of office in 2021.
01:02And it is a public company, which means people can buy its stock.
01:06Now, Donald Trump owns about 50 to 53 percent of the company.
01:10So supply and demand, you're buying the stock.
01:13It's going to cost the price to go up and that's going to increase the value of the company.
01:17Then there's also private purchases that you could do directly from the company, in which case the money is just going straight into Trump Media's cash pile.
01:25And then the third way would be buying ads.
01:28Now, it does not look like many, many, many entities are taking advantage of that.
01:32They reported just eight hundred and twenty one thousand dollars in net sales in the last quarter.
01:36And you're looking through, scrolling through True Social, you're not seeing any big ads.
01:41You know, you're not seeing the Dubai Tourism Organization or anything like that.
01:45You're seeing, you know, selling MAGA stuff, conspiracy related products and True Social advertising its own streaming platform.
01:53But those do provide three ways to get just mass amounts of money to the president that were not available during his first term.
02:01And now we're going to talk about the president's foray into cryptocurrency, because in his first term, lest we not forget, he was a bit of a crypto skeptic.
02:12I'm going to read part of a post that he posted on Twitter in July of 2019.
02:18He said this, I'm not a fan of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, which are not money and whose value is highly volatile and based on thin air.
02:26Then he went on to say this, quote, we have only one real currency in the USA and it is stronger than ever, both dependable and reliable.
02:34It is by far the most dominant currency anywhere in the world, and it will always stay that way.
02:39It is called the United States dollar.
02:42And this doesn't sound like someone who then just a couple of years later would launch a meme coin, the Trump meme coin.
02:49So why the about face when it comes to cryptocurrency? Walk us through that.
02:53The about face, you know, I would imagine has a lot to do with someone informing President Trump that there is a lot of money to be made and not having to sell any sort of real product.
03:06You know, you are just putting something on the Internet. It has no inherent value.
03:10There's no no it's nothing.
03:12I mean, it's just showing support for a meme and people can just buy this thing and give him money.
03:18I mean, I did it. I did it. It's got my true social or my official Trump meme coin right here.
03:23I wanted to see what it would take to do.
03:25I sat on the couch and then, of course, of setting up an account, linking it to some bank account.
03:30Within about 15, 20 minutes, I was able to buy meme coin, which would go to companies that he's partnering with there.
03:36And, you know, I only bought a couple of dollars worth.
03:38It was also an easier way to track it is by actually owning it rather than trying to put it in some sort of tracker.
03:43They don't make trackers that are as good as normal stock trackers, best I could tell.
03:47But it is a way just to get money to him for for next to nothing.
03:50And, you know, that that would you know, if somebody if somebody told me there was a way for me to get money for doing very little work and selling nothing.
03:57But it ran contrary to a preexisting belief.
03:59You know, I might do a 180 as well.
04:02And Zach, you held that up for just a moment.
04:04But I saw a red line and I saw the trajectory of that line going down.
04:09Yeah. And I mean, that's a pretty steep decline there.
04:11So as a meme coin holder for Trump, are you seeing a return on investment?
04:17I mean, what does that look like?
04:19Well, I'm I'm not.
04:21I think my my my dollar forty six original purchase is now down to about a dollar forty two.
04:27But no, by and large, people who've purchased it have not done well.
04:31The Washington Post reported recently citing some some blockchain analytics firm that it was like seven hundred thousand plus people lost money on it while just like, you know, a very small amount of people made over eight figures.
04:45And it was just, you know, if you're in it, it just reeks of being something that insiders had an advantage on.
04:53You know, they had no shortage of people that they talked to in this post article who invested.
04:57They wanted to show their support of the company.
04:58And honestly, I shouldn't even say invest that they bought the meme coin to show their support of Trump.
05:03And then probably, you know, ended up losing most of what they put in there in the first place.
05:10And I want to talk now about the third way you're reporting people are directing money into Trump's business empire.
05:15And that's through World Liberty Financial.
05:18Talk to us about that company.
05:19So World Liberty Financial is a decentralized finance platform that originally when it went out, you could buy tokens, which would allow you kind of a vote in how the organization runs.
05:33They would put proposals forward and you could vote on them.
05:35It doesn't look like that's really happened, at least publicly.
05:38I went to the message forum where they have these sort of proposals and there hasn't been a post in over a month.
05:44But people would buy these these tokens and you can't trade them.
05:47They are not non transferable.
05:48So if you have it, you cannot try to sell it as a profit or a loss like you would with a meme coin.
05:55The other product that they recently put out was a stable coin.
05:58Now, that is a cryptocurrency that is pegged to the dollar.
06:01There's supposed to be underlying assets there.
06:03And that's the one that really shifted a lot of money there, where a investment fund linked to the government of Abu Dhabi announced that it would do a $2 billion investment in the crypto exchange Binance.
06:17But it would use this World Liberty stable coin to do it.
06:21And that is just, you know, stable coins typically work in the way a bank would work.
06:25So this is going to give them a fair amount of assets that they can go ahead and invest and try to profit off the proceeds of that investment for.
06:34And you've got an example right there of a foreign government backed entity doing that.
06:39And then news also came out of Pakistan recently that World Liberty was going to assist the Pakistan Crypto Council with its own efforts to innovate and use the blockchain.
06:50So it seems like it's there.
06:51It's more of a consulting fee that it's taking.
06:53It looks like it'd be a new revenue stream for World Liberty.
06:55But it is another foreign government paying an entity that is 60 percent of it is owned by Donald Trump and his family members.
07:03We're seeing a bit, as you and I have talked about, a 180 from President Trump on his stance on crypto.
07:09He's definitely seemingly more bullish on the currency.
07:13And the ventures we're talking about are social media as well as cryptocurrency.
07:16So was there any indication that these ventures are somehow impacting President Trump's policymaking?
07:25You know, Donald Trump has put himself forward as somebody who's very pro crypto.
07:32I believe that happened before that he publicly got involved with some of these crypto ventures.
07:37So Trump media has been around for a bit, but he was railing against crypto, I think, as late as 2021.
07:42But, you know, certainly is his best interest in terms of picking up supporters.
07:47The crypto enthusiasts certainly put a lot of money into getting him elected.
07:51And that certainly, you know, benefited him in that way.
07:54And now you are seeing that overlap.
07:56You're seeing instances where we don't know.
07:58You know, is Donald Trump wanting to build U.S.
08:01AI crypto infrastructure because it benefits his own companies because he thinks it's good for the United States?
08:06Both.
08:07You know, it's tough to say.
08:09And you, as well as the other members of the money and politics team here at Forbes,
08:14have done some really great reporting on how President Trump has financially benefited from his time in the White House.
08:21But how is he personally profiting from this?
08:24I mean, what really are the rules here when it comes to a president benefiting off of a business that he had out of office?
08:31Now he's in office.
08:32I mean, I'm sure the ethical concerns are abound here.
08:35Right.
08:36So the main issue is that this allows entities a very easy way to get him money.
08:42Again, I was able to do it from my couch, buying some of the meme coin that he owns a large stake on and gets a cut of the transaction fees.
08:49You know, the White House, when I reached out for comment, said, you know, the president can't have conflicts of interest.
08:54That is correct.
08:55Now, the main issue, though, is the Foreign Emoluments Clause, which is that part of the Constitution using really antiquated language that says the president's not supposed to accept payments or gifts from foreign entities.
09:08Now, there were cases going through the Supreme Court during his first term.
09:12Does a foreign government buying something at one of his hotels, paying for a hotel room, booking a ballroom?
09:17Does that count?
09:19Not only did the courts never even rule on that, they never even definitively decided who had standing to sue on that.
09:25So we are really back at square one on that.
09:27I have not seen any cases on that filed yet this term either.
09:31So, you know, if you're if someone's waiting for the Foreign Emoluments Clause to come in and stop this, that does not seem like it's going to happen.
09:38And as you and I have talked about for a couple of years now, Trump media has been around for a little bit, but not around in President Trump's first term.
09:48The Trump meme coin also not around in President Trump's first term.
09:51So how do these types of business ventures and people being able to direct money into President Trump's empire differ from the first term?
10:00Now, do people just have more options?
10:02Yeah.
10:03Yeah, it's absolutely more.
10:04It's more more options.
10:05It's more convenient.
10:05You don't need to go down to the hotel.
10:08You know, one of the big things that I spent looking at covering the D.C. hotel was there were all sorts of rumors about different companies and different foreign governments booking rooms and just not using them, feeling that's an easy way just to get cash to Trump's business.
10:22You know, Mark Zuckerberg was asked if Facebook did that during congressional testimony.
10:26There's no you don't need to bother with that anymore.
10:28You know, you could just go ahead and do this through crypto, do with your meme coin.
10:32So, yeah, it is a lot easier.
10:34You're not getting any tangible product.
10:36You know, you could always say if I'm going to the hotel, well, you know, I'm having a glass of wine for my $25.
10:41So I am getting something in return.
10:43You know, here you're getting a digital token.
10:46So that that really stands out.
10:48Just the amount of money that he's able to take in this time is just astounding compared to last time.
10:54And I look back to that first term and can't believe like, wow, I was, you know, monitoring thousand dollar hotel room purchases from foreign governments.
11:02And those were a big story because those those are just the pittance to the amount of money that he's taking in.
11:06And then, you know, the big question is, is he doing is he making policy based on his own best interest or based on the best interest of the country?
11:14And there should be no doubt that the president is making interest, making decisions in the best interest of the country.
11:19But we don't know that here.
11:21And aside from you and your dollar and forty six meme coin purchase, are there any other notable people pouring their money into these newish Trump ventures?
11:34Yeah, as I mentioned earlier, you're seeing foreign governments doing it.
11:38You're seeing Justin Sun, who is a Chinese based crypto investor who the SEC was looking into him and wanting his company.
11:47And then he, I think it was about like.
11:51In World Liberty Financial, really helping that organization get off the ground.
11:55And the SEC has then since gone ahead and paused its investigation into him.
12:00Sun is also a appears to be a major holder of the Trump meme coin.
12:05Trump recently had a contest or I should say Trump.
12:07The companies behind the meme coin had a contest where the top 220 holders of the meme coin would be invited to a private meal, black tie optional with Trump at his D.C.
12:17area golf course.
12:19And then the top, I think it was like five or six holders would get invited on a special tour.
12:25It originally said special tour of the White House, but later White House was scrubbed from the website.
12:29So here you have, you know, the opportunity to dine with the president if you own enough of his company or, you know, even what would have been a tour of the White House if you bought enough of the stuff.
12:39So, you know, it certainly is Trump monetizing the presidency in a way that we just didn't see him as willing to do in his first term.
12:46Yeah, definitely more eye opening this time around.
12:50I'm sure I know actually that you did reach out to the White House.
12:53What specifically did they say when you brought up these potential ethical concerns, these potential conflicts of interest?
13:01Yeah, it's you know, there's no conflicts of interest, which which legal, I believe, is correct.
13:06And they also said the American people don't really care, which, I mean, to be honest, is somewhat correct.
13:11You know, this was all reported on largely in his in his first term.
13:15There was no shortage of reporting out there.
13:16Now, it may not have been in your particular bubble or on your particular news channel, but there was plenty of reporting out there.
13:22You know, there were newsletters, podcasts, books, TV specials, all sorts of stuff on how Trump is profiting off the presidency.
13:29And, you know, the American people were presented with a choice and they decided to go back to that.
13:35And don't sell our reporting short.
13:37I mean, we did plenty of videos.
13:39We did plenty of reporting on it as well that I am sure the good American people did all watch, too.
13:45Per usual, Zach, I appreciate your reporting.
13:48Thanks for joining me.
13:49My pleasure.