Harry Truman left the White House without any income other than his Army pension of $113 (£85) per month. The 33rd US president later wrote that it was wrong to “commercialize on the prestige and dignity of the office of the presidency”.
George W Bush put his investments in a blind trust before running for president, and said in his last week in office that he had no idea how the 2008 economic crisis affected his net worth.
Donald Trump, in contrast, made at least $2.2bn (£1.7bn) in his first year back in office, according to a new financial disclosure report – a sum historians said was unprecedented and shattered the norm of US presidents avoiding financial conflicts of interest in the White House.
“There’s just no precedent for this,” said Barbara Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center. “It’s beyond anything we’ve ever seen in the presidency.”
Trump’s massive 2025 earnings laid bare just how much he has benefited from his return to office, through money-making ventures that often blurred the line between official government policymaking and private business dealings by the president, his family and close advisers.
Trump made $1.4bn in the cryptocurrency industry alone, according to the mandatory financial disclosure that was made public on Tuesday.
Trump reported $635m in royalties from Celebration Coins, the entity thought to be behind the $TRUMP meme coin he launched just before starting his second term.
