President Donald Trump recently filed a required financial disclosure form outlining his 2025 income, and it drew attention to the scale of his wealth — an estimated increase of more than $2 billion in one year.
On July 1, a reporter asked Trump how he’d respond to critics who say he’s profiting off the presidency.
Trump responded, “Well, you know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up — everybody’s profiting. Do you have a 401(k)? … So we’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”
Trump’s sizable stock holdings, and transactions involving them, make up more than 800 pages of the 927-page disclosure document, and they have undoubtedly increased in value along with the rest of the stock market.
But the financial disclosure form shows several major sources of income that have nothing to do with the stock market. Cryptocurrency is most notable, bringing in $1.4 billion. The disclosure also shows another $400 million from non-stock sources such as real estate, legal settlements, overseas licensing agreements and branded merchandise such as watches and footwear.
“The vast majority of what he’s reporting has increased outside of a direct connection to the stock market,” said Kedric Payne, general counsel for the Campaign Legal Center, which focuses on campaign transparency, ethics and voting rights.
The White House did not dispute PolitiFact’s calculations of the disclosure form’s figures.
“As President Trump said, he has a lot of assets because he was a massively successful businessman prior to becoming President, which was why he was elected to office in the first place,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said in a statement.
The Trump Organization, the president’s real estate-focused business, told PolitiFact in another statement that “the breadth and depth of this filing further underscores our commitment to transparency.”
What is and is not included in the disclosure form
Despite the hundreds of pages dedicated to stocks in Trump’s disclosure document, it’s difficult to assess his stock-related gains with precision. The form lists thousands of stock purchases and sales but the proceeds are reported in broad ranges of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. This makes it nearly impossible to determine the specific net gains from Trump’s stock transactions.
In addition, the form doesn’t address the value of the stocks Trump holds that were not bought or sold in 2025.
To test Trump’s assertion that his gains were primarily driven by the stock market, we turned to portions of the disclosure form that detailed income unrelated to stocks. Although the form is often unclear about what specific line items refer to, it provides enough information to determine that cryptocurrency ventures provided Trump with well over $1 billion in 2025 income.
Two major crypto ventures included in the form are World Liberty Financial and Celebration Coins, the latter of which appears to be linked to his $TRUMP meme coin. The Associated Press has described meme coins as “a strange and highly volatile corner of the crypto industry that often start as a joke with no real value but can surge in price if enough people are willing to buy them.” Dogecoin, a meme coin based on the Shiba Inu meme, is one high-profile example.
Trump’s reported income from World Liberty Financial transactions is roughly $791 million, while income from Celebration Coins is just over $635 million — $1.4 billion total. (It’s unclear whether Trump profited from all this income or if some was allocated to overheard or shared by co-investors.)
Trump earned money every time someone bought or sold one of his cryptocurrencies, but rank and file investors have fared less well as the currency’s value has declined, according to The New York Times. The Times reported that nearly 1 million people who bought his meme coin have collectively lost $3.81 billion in value through the end of June, citing a report by the cryptocurrency analytics firm Nansen.
Trump’s crypto ventures have also raised concerns about foreign countries and people with interests before the U.S. government using crypto investments to influence the president.
Other income, from golf to merch
Other non-stock income sources added another $400 million, according to the form:
- Real estate. Trump’s pre-White House career was in real estate, and he has continued to make significant amounts of money from that sector, including almost $196 million in 2025. This includes income from many of his well-known properties, including Mar-a-Lago in Florida and golf courses in Florida, New Jersey, New York and Ireland.
- Legal settlements. Trump listed $88.5 million in payments received as legal settlements, including from media companies such as ABC and CBS and social media platforms Meta, YouTube and Twitter.
- Overseas licensing. Trump has struck $65 million in licensing deals with several overseas entities. The properties are located in Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Romania, the Philippines, Vietnam and India.
- Trump-branded merchandise. Trump netted $8 million from sales of watches, footwear and published materials.
Two separate estimates by media outlets suggest that the non-stock gains account for well over half of Trump’s 2025 income gains.
A New York Times analysis of the disclosure form estimated that Trump “pulled in at least $2.2 billion” overall in 2025. And a March Forbes analysis — before the disclosure form was released — estimated that Trump’s wealth had risen by $2.7 billion, partially offset by a $1.3 billion loss from stock valuations in the Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social.
Using these estimates as a baseline, Trump’s non-stock gains would be either 81% of his gains (using the Times’ figure) or 67% (using Forbes’ figure). Neither indicates gains driven largely by the stock market.
“It’s a fair reading of this disclosure form to say that President Trump’s crypto ventures accounted for a substantial portion of his financial gains in 2025,” said Michael Beckel, who tracks money in politics for Issue One, which tracks campaign finance. “Without his forays into the crypto industry, President Trump’s financial gains in 2025 would have been significantly less. The stock market’s performance alone does not explain President Trump’s sizable financial gains in 2025.”
PolitiFact ruling
Trump said, “You know why I’m profiting? Because the stock market’s going up. … I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”
Like other Americans invested in the stock market, which had a strong 2025 performance, Trump likely made gains last year. But his 2025 financial disclosure form reports $1.4 billion alone in income from cryptocurrencies, and another $400 million from non-stock sources, including real estate, legal settlements, overseas licensing agreements and branded merchandise.
A full and precise accounting of Trump’s income is not possible. However, credible estimates indicate that two-thirds to 80% of his total income gains in 2025 came from non-stock sources.
His statement that he profited because “the stock market’s going up” contains an element of truth but omits information that would give a different impression, so we rate it Mostly False.
Source: Original Article
