How Barron Trump May Have Earned $40 Million From His Dad’s Crypto Venture

Forbes Breaking News

Donald Trump’s oldest children earned a couple million dollars a year working inside their father’s real-estate empire, according to Forbes’ estimates. Barron Trump appears to be earning much more, much faster. Forbes money in politics reporter Kyle Khan-Mullins joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.

Transcript

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

00:07is my Forbes colleague, Money in Politics reporter, Kyle Kahn-Mullins. Kyle, thanks so much for joining

00:12me. Always great to be here, Brittany. Thanks for having me. According to reporting from our

00:18colleague, Dan Alexander, President Trump's crypto ventures now make up the bulk of his

00:23net worth. President Trump has touted that his youngest son, Barron Trump, has extensive

00:28knowledge of the currency, and you're reporting that Barron Trump made a pretty penny himself

00:33from his father's crypto ventures. Just how much? Absolutely, Brittany. My colleague Dan and I

00:39were estimating that Barron could have made around $40 million from a stake in the Trump family's

00:44crypto business. The one we're talking about here is World Liberty Financial. That's separate from

00:48the Trump meme coin. That's a separate Trump business we could talk about another time.

00:52But what we learned recently, Trump released his financial disclosure report, and it revealed that

00:58his stake in this World Liberty Financial business as of last year was 52.5%, and then unnamed family

01:05members of his owned another 22.5%. And if you look at the masthead of World Liberty Financial who's in

01:13charge there, you see that he has three sons who are all listed as founders there, Don Jr., Eric,

01:21and Barron. Assuming that they all share equal stakes, Barron would have taken 7.5% of the

01:28overall venture. That's the same percentage, by the way, that Trump's three eldest children held

01:32in his D.C. hotel. And so we calculate that that would have made Barron roughly $40 million with a

01:39couple of caveats that I know we're going to get into. I want to talk about one of those caveats,

01:43because your team also reported about a letter from January of 2025. And it showed that the Trump

01:49organization sold a stake in World Liberty Financial. And we know that's the crypto company

01:54associated with the Trumps. Financially, what does that mean to Barron Trump and that $40 million?

02:01The short answer is we're not 100% sure. We have this letter that shows that in one of the Trump

02:07court cases that shows that they appear to have sold off a stake in this World Liberty Financial

02:13business. We also have just the statements on World Liberty Financial's website that have shown that

02:19the percentage owned by the Trump family members has been declining over time. But we don't know

02:23exactly how much it's gone down and how much they sold their stake for and what the terms of the sale

02:28were. We don't really know any of that, probably until next year's financial disclosures from Donald

02:33Trump. That's just the way these things shake out. This sale appears to have taken place after this

02:39most recent financial disclosure took place. So all of this is to say that that $40 million number is

02:44assuming that Barron does still have that 7.5% stake, depending on how much he's, you know,

02:48if he did sell part of his stake and depending on how much he sold it for, that number could be a

02:52little higher or lower. And we know Barron's older brothers, Don Jr., as well as Eric Trump,

02:58have been in the family business now for decades. So how does this $40 million stack up to how much

03:05both Don Jr. and Eric Trump were making from their dad or with their dad, rather, at his age?

03:12It's a very generous welcome to the Trump family business, in short. His older siblings,

03:18talking about Don Jr., Eric, also Ivanka, they had stakes in Trump's D.C. hotel,

03:23one of Trump's Las Vegas properties. But those didn't end up throwing off nearly as much money for

03:28them as this $40 million that we're talking about. Now, I should say the older siblings have also been

03:32working for the Trump Organization since the 2000s. Eric and Don Jr. are still the executive vice

03:37presidents there. They run the company. Ivanka stepped away when her was elected to the White

03:41House the first time. Also, Ivanka's married to Jared Kushner. He's nearly a billionaire in his own

03:46right. So the older siblings are still likely wealthier than Barron, per our estimates. But this

03:52has helped Barron narrow the gap pretty considerably. And Don Jr. and Eric Trump, they do have decades on

03:59Barron. But they have been in the spotlight in a way now for years that Barron simply has not.

04:05We have seen a lot of them. They've been EVPs at the Trump Organization. They've spoke at a recent

04:12crypto conference in Vegas. They've been steadily interviewed for years on cable news networks.

04:18But Barron Trump's not so much in the public eye. What do we know about the 19-year-old?

04:24We don't know a ton. His mom, Melania, has really tried to keep him out of the public eye

04:28while he was growing up. We do know that he attended some expensive private schools in New

04:32York and Maryland and Florida for his education as his family moved from state. Today, a student

04:38at New York University, Stern's business. That tuition and cost of attendance there runs about

04:43$100,000 a year. And reportedly, we believe that he advised his father on how to appeal to young

04:49voters during the campaign. Beyond all that, he has a huge public debut yet. We'll see if he ends up

04:55doing that at some point in the near future. And to that point, there was reporting that he

05:01was the person who was in his dad's ear during the 2024 campaign saying, hey, you need to get

05:06on podcasts. You need to meet voters in that realm. But is this the first time, his first foray into

05:14the family business? Well, Brittany, it depends on what you mean by family business. I think at this

05:20point here at Forbes, we might describe politics as the Trump family business, in which case,

05:26you know, his entry into, you know, advising his father might be his first foray into the family

05:31business. But if you're talking about the money making side of things, you know, the Trump

05:36organization, yes, we believe this is his first foray into the family business. And he is still a

05:41student at NYU. He has, according to your reporting, made $40 million in crypto. I mean, how has he made

05:48this amount of money so fast? So the Trump organization entity that Barron appears to have

05:56at least some stake in, it gets a share of all of the revenues for this World Liberty financial

06:02business, over $30 million. So the company sold about $550 million of these tokens in total.

06:10If you do the math out after that first $30 million, do the math, assuming it's a 7.5% stake,

06:15that comes out to about $39 million for Barron before taxes. Take out the taxes, probably closer

06:20to $25 million or so. But in short, that's how much they are selling cryptocurrency and pocketing the

06:27cash. And Trump, as we've talked about, went from bearish to bullish on crypto from term one to

06:34term two. He essentially said in term one, crypto wasn't real. He's vowed in term two to be the first

06:40crypto president to make the United States the crypto capital of the world. If the Trumps, as you're

06:46reporting, are making hand over fist when it comes to crypto, what does that indicate to you, if anything,

06:52about where his policies on the industry will go next? Well, to paraphrase my colleague and Trump

07:00expert, Dan Alexander, Trump has always been incredible at selling hype. And crypto is one

07:06of the most hype driven businesses in the world right now. As for Trump's crypto businesses in

07:11office, this is an issue that a lot of ethics experts and watchdogs, certainly Democrats, who are

07:17opposed to Trump have all raised that Trump is regulating an industry that he's also making enormous amount

07:22amounts of money from. Dan recently estimated that Trump has made over a billion dollars

07:26from cryptocurrency, at least. The tech right and the crypto industry were also very big backers of

07:33Trump during his most recent campaign, the 2024 campaign. And that's because he showed that he was

07:37going to be a little bit friendlier to them. So I would personally be shocked if we see any attempt at

07:41any regulation of the crypto industry that might cut into the president's own pocketbook. And I don't see

07:47an incentive for him to do that. Kyle, I always appreciate your reporting. I always love our

07:52conversations. Thank you so much for your insight. And until the next one. Always great to be here,

07:58Brittany. Thanks again.

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