Profiting off of the Presidency: Part two of a recap of corruption concerns in 2025

President Trump, his super PAC, and his family have profited on his second presidency without much regard for norms, appearances, or the law. A recap.

Selling Personal Access

Reports last March indicated that Trump was inviting guests to dine with him at Mar-a-Lago for anyone who could cough up a few million dollars in political donations. In May he attended a fundraiser hosted by MAGA Inc., a pro-Trump super PAC which spent more than $400 million on his 2024 campaign. The cost per-plate at the fundraiser was $1.5 million. This super PAC raised almost $200 million after election day through June 30–raising eyebrows since it’s a single-candidate super PAC in support of Trump, given that he is barred under the Constitution from running for president again in 2028.

Later the same month, Trump held a dinner at his D.C.-area golf club for the top 225 holders of his memecoin, a cryptocurrency, which launched in 2025. He promoted the dinner on his social media platform and the memcoin website, encouraging people to “Join the Trump Community.” In the first week after the dinner was announced, the memecoin had raked in more than $1 million in trading fees. More on that next.

Crypto Profits

While Trump encouraged consumers to purchase his memecoin, his DOJ disbanded the National Cryptocurrency Enforcement Team and stopped enforcing some regulations for the industry. Trump proposed a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve and Digital Asset Stockpile for bitcoin in an executive order, and suggested on Truth Social that it should also hold ether, XRP, solana and cardano. A CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) report found in July that 19 White House officials could profit from the reserve plan if they didn’t divest.

The Trump Organization brought in more than $800 million in the first half of 2025, more than 90% of which came from crypto ventures. More than $450 million came from World Liberty Financial (WLF), a crypto firm founded in part by Trump’s family members which pays 75% of its revenue from token sales to a Trump Organization entity.

Profits for the Trump Organization directly benefit the president. When Trump first took office in 2017, he placed the Trump Organization into a revocable trust (The Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust) instead of the typical blind trust like recent presidents. He has claimed repeatedly that he does not have controlling authority over the trust, despite contradictory filings. According to business filings made to the British government last summer, Trump is described as a “person with significant control”, specifically someone with “the right to exercise, or actually exercises, significant influence or control over the activities of the trust.”

Product and Self Promotion

Trump has consistently promoted products that financially benefit him over the years. His 2025 financial disclosures revealed at least $10 million from royalty payments for things like guitars, coffee table books, bibles, sneakers and watches. In June last year he promoted his new fragrances on Truth Social, and Trump wines have been stocked at the Coast Guard Exchanges. None of this self-dealing is illegal, since the President is exempt from a 1989 law prohibiting federal employees from using their office for private gain, but ethical concerns remain.

And it’s not just Trump; members of his administration have participated in brand promotion, sometimes including their own products and ventures. FBI Director Kash Patel advertises his foundation on his FBI website biography. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick has encouraged Americans to buy Tesla stock which his financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald encouraged at the same time. Patel and Lutnick aren’t exempt from the aforementioned law. Still, it doesn’t appear that any meaningful investigations or consequences have come, despite at least one complaint filed with the Office of Government Ethics.