How Trump Just Got Really Rich, with Eric Lipton

_THE INTERVIEW_

This interview was auto-transcribed and edited for clarity.

Ari: One of the most interesting things happening in the Trump administration so far is the way Trump has been making money in so many different ways.

There was a moment on Tucker Carlson’s podcast, where a guest brought up Trump’s activities in the Middle East—new hotels, big deals. Tucker said, “That seems like corruption,” and then just brushed it off.

It feels like there’s a lot happening here that people aren’t really talking about. I know you’ve been covering the crypto side of it. Can you give us a summary of what’s actually happening in Trump’s world with his family, crypto, and how he’s making money there?

Eric Lipton: Sure. It’s a complicated set of investment vehicles that he and his family, especially his sons, have turned to in order to make money while he’s in office. The extent of it is pretty much unprecedented in American history, and it’s far more intense than what we saw in Trump’s first term.

Back then, most of the focus was on his hotels — the Trump International in DC, Doral in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. The concern was that lobbyists, lawmakers, and foreign officials were spending money there, which raised questions about patronage.

But the dollar amounts then were in the hundreds of thousands or millions, maybe tens of millions if you add everything up.

Now, the business operations Trump and his sons are engaged in could mean billions in revenue or profit for the family. There are at least three major crypto ventures. First, the Trump meme coin, which has been extremely lucrative and became popular right before he was inaugurated.

Second, World Liberty, which introduced a stablecoin that overnight became one of the largest in the world. Third, Trump Media, which is moving into crypto by buying up Bitcoin and offering ETFs — this is becoming a much bigger part of the company than Truth Social, which is actually losing money.

So Trump and his family are now huge players globally in the crypto space. At the same time, he’s appointing the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, setting regulatory and enforcement policy, and the SEC is dropping litigation against people who are business partners.

This creates a conflict of interest that we really don’t have precedent for. Traditionally, presidents have tried to divest from assets that would create conflicts like this. In the Trump family’s case, they’re expanding those assets.

Ari: The word I keep hearing is “unprecedented.” But it’s not unprecedented for presidents to make money while in office, or for their families to benefit.

There was controversy about Joe Biden and his son, and people pointed to Barack Obama leaving office with a lot of money. Is the unprecedented part here just about the scale? Or is it the conflict of interest?

Eric Lipton: It’s about the scale. There are plenty of examples in history—LBJ’s wife had a radio business that created conflicts, Billy Carter worked as a lobbyist for Libya, Hunter Biden was paid as a consultant for companies because his dad was vice president. Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation, too.

But the scale here is different. We’re talking about billions in net wealth attributed to Trump and his family since he was elected, mostly because of these crypto operations. The amount of money Hunter Biden may have accumulated is trivial by comparison.

And this is the president himself, not just a relative. Trump invited the top owners of the meme coin to his golf club in Virginia, and the highest owners got a White House tour. This directly involves the president.

So yes, the word “unprecedented” is one we’re careful with, but the breadth and scale of these activities is unprecedented in American history. I’ve talked to historians across the spectrum, and they can’t cite any other precedent for this level of apparent conflict of interest.

Ari: When Trump was first elected, I thought it would have been great if he just said, “I’m done with my businesses, I’m going to focus on being president.” But that’s probably unrealistic—he’s been a businessman his whole life. His sons run a lot of it. Is it realistic to expect them to slow down just because their father is president?

And with crypto, this is a new business that started right before his second term, correct?

Eric Lipton: World Liberty was launched in September or October 2024, and the meme coin was just a few days before he was sworn in. He was heading toward reelection, but the outcome was still up in the air. So yes, these ventures started right before the second term.

Ari: What I hear from most Trump supporters is that it’s probably not ideal for him to be making so much money, but he’s a businessman, his sons run the businesses, and of course they want to expand their net worth.

As long as it doesn’t cross the line into affecting how he governs or sets policy, people seem okay with it.

There was a point where Trump was getting heat for accepting a jet from Doha, which I don’t think he ended up getting. People were worried it would change his policy with Qatar or other Middle Eastern countries.

It doesn’t seem like that deal changed anything. But with Trump’s interests in crypto, what are the potential conflicts of interest that could arise?

Eric Lipton: Trump is the guy from The Apprentice — making money and building wealth is part of his identity. People voted knowing that. The idea of putting a Trump hotel in a blind trust doesn’t really make sense, because you still know it’s a Trump hotel. People can still go there to try to curry favor.

There’s a distinction between the first and second terms. In the first term, the Trump family said they wouldn’t do new international deals, and their business operations stagnated. They came to regret that, because they were still targeted with subpoenas and investigations. So for the second term, they made it clear they wouldn’t restrain themselves.

The problem is, if Trump is appointing the head of the SEC, and the SEC drops investigations into someone like Justin Sun from Tron—who is a big buyer of the meme coin and a major investor in World Liberty Financial—or if Trump considers pardoning CZ from Binance, who is their business partner, it creates at least the appearance of a relationship between official actions and benefits for business partners.

With the jet from Qatar, it looks like it was donated to the United States and may end up at a Trump library. Around the same time, Qatar announced a partnership in a real estate deal near Doha with the Trump brand. Was there a relationship between the donation and the deal? We don’t have evidence of a quid pro quo, but the fact that these questions exist is a problem.

It’s unusual in American history to have a president and his family so intertwined in international dealmaking that it creates these kinds of appearances of conflict.

Ari: You made a good point about how in the first administration, they tried to tamp down the business to avoid heat, but got a lot of heat anyway. So this time, the attitude is, “Look what they tried to do to us, we’re not going to slow down.” That seems rational from their perspective.

You also mentioned that diplomacy is getting mixed with Trump’s business deals. Is there a way to look at these real estate deals as not just worrisome, but maybe as a tool of diplomacy? Could Trump use his hotels and business interests to forge new diplomatic relations in a way other presidents couldn’t?

Eric Lipton: One reason the Trump family is so active in the Middle East is that they’re popular there — Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar. They’re also popular in places like Vietnam and Serbia, where they have deals, and in India.

You could see it as a form of diplomacy. In the Middle East, the blending of business and government interests is normal. The royal family profits from business operations, and as long as society benefits, it’s accepted.

But that’s not the norm in the United States. Since the Watergate era, there’s been an expectation that public officials separate personal financial interests from their official duties. That’s not always honored, but presidents have generally tried to do it more than Trump has.

Trump is taking a different approach. It doesn’t seem to alienate his base — it’s part of his identity. What to make of it, I don’t know. But it’s very unusual, and we’re spending time documenting these ventures and looking at who’s involved and what vested interests they might have.

Ari: What problems do you think this will cause for Trump? It hasn’t really alienated his base, and people on the right aren’t talking about it much.

The easiest narrative for Democrats is to say, “This is big corruption.” Do you think it will hurt him in the midterms or be used against him? Could even other Republicans use it in 2028?

Eric Lipton: Ultimately, the economy is the biggest factor. As long as the economy is doing well, this probably won’t affect his popularity. If Democrats take the House and get subpoena power, they could hold hearings and bring more attention to it, and it might start to resonate.

But there are so many different business ventures, it’s hard for the average American to track them all or evaluate them. It’s confusing. Our job is to look at each deal, deconstruct it, see who the players are, and discuss potential vested interests. Whether it changes anything is up to voters and the public.

Ari: Last question. Going back to the crypto angle — there are things about crypto that make it different from other business ventures.

Sometimes crypto purchases are harder to track, or it’s harder to see what’s going on. Are there elements of this being crypto that make the situation more complicated than regular business deals?

Eric Lipton: For example, when they had the contest to win dinner with the president, even the Trump family didn’t know who the entrants were until the deadline. Bill Zanker, Trump’s business partner who created the meme coin, only found out who the winners were after the fact.

I was there as the dinner was assembling and met some of the people, and then at the White House tour. It turned out that many of the investors were from Asia — big crypto players who thought it was cool to go to the president’s club. We even found one guy who was a member of a Chinese Communist Party-affiliated entity, who became one of the top bidders and won an invitation to dinner and the White House.

It struck us as odd because Trump has criticized Harvard for hosting students from China with potential ties to the Communist Party, but then he’s inviting a business executive from China with those ties to dinner and the White House.

Crypto allows people to buy into the Trump meme coin through anonymous accounts, so you don’t know who they are. That creates potential for foreign influence campaigns to play out through his crypto ventures, with no public visibility. It’s a real question mark.