Trump misses deadline to disclose tens of millions of dollars in stock trades
He pushed the legal limits of a financial practice Americans have largely opposed from their elected officials.
President Donald Trump was months late in disclosing tens of millions of dollars in stock trading, according to his latest investment filings, pushing the legal limits of a financial practice Americans have largely opposed from their elected officials.
The disclosures filed last week with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics showed that Trump sold between $5 million and $25 million each of Microsoft and Amazon stock in February and purchased millions of dollars’ worth of the companies’ stock in March.
The president is required to publicly disclose stock transactions exceeding $1,000 within 45 days. He was assessed a fee of $200 for his tardiness, records show. He was fined for the same infraction in March and in August, according to his investment filings those months.
After the Watergate scandal of the 1970s, presidents and vice presidents from Jimmy Carter onward have taken steps to mitigate ethical concerns while in office, including selling their stock portfolios and investing their assets in Treasury notes and mutual funds before their inaugurations.
Trump reported that he sold his stock portfolio before beginning his first presidential term in 2017, but he opted against doing so when he began his second term last year. He has also maintained stakes in his family’s business empire, which expanded significantly during his years out of office, including investments in social media and cryptocurrency.
In 2024, the year he was elected to his second term, Trump reported more than $600 million in income and $1.6 billion in assets. The Trump Organization has since continued to build his net worth with construction projects overseas and a booming cryptocurrency business, among other avenues that rely on foreign governments and private companies that are interested in currying favor with the Trump administration.
The president has yet to make publicly available his 2025 financial closures, which are due Friday. Trump and Vice President JD Vance each requested and received a 45-day extension “to compile the necessary financial information and complete the report,” according to a White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Trump’s assets are held in a trust managed by his children. The arrangement differs from previous presidents’ blind trusts, which prevented their owners from knowing how their investments were being managed.
The White House referred inquiries about the president’s stocks to the Trump Organization. A spokesperson for the Trump Organization said the president’s investment holdings are managed exclusively by independent third-party financial institutions.
“Neither President Trump, his family, nor The Trump Organization plays any role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments,” Kimberly Benza, director of executive operations and communications, said in a statement. “They receive no advance notice of trading activity and provide no input regarding investment decisions or portfolio management of any kind.”
Trump purchased Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, days before the company announced a multiyear partnership with Meta to fill its new data centers with Nvidia processors, his disclosures show. The company’s shares rose around 2.5% after the deal. Trump also purchased stock in leading companies such as Microsoft and Amazon months before the Pentagon announced deals to deploy their technology in classified computer networks.
As rising gas prices driven by Trump’s war with Iran have pushed up the cost of groceries and other household items, he has repeatedly touted the resiliency of the stock market.
The markets have hit record highs during his second term; the tech-heavy Nasdaq reached a record closing on Wednesday. The rally has been driven in part by investor optimism about artificial intelligence.
Trump has issued multiple executive orders to roll back regulation of AI and spur the development of data centers and other infrastructure needed to support its development.
The American public has long been critical of public officials trading stocks while in office. Eighty-one percent of registered voters in a 2022 USA Today-Suffolk University poll said members of Congress should be banned from trading stocks while serving.
Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike have proposed bills to ban stock trading, a practice in which members of both parties have long participated. Members of Congress have repeatedly violated laws requiring timely reporting.
House Democrats proposed a bill last year that would bar Trump, lawmakers, and their spouses from trading stocks. That effort has stalled, as has a bipartisan bill that excludes Trump but would impose the prohibitions on members of Congress and their families.
Trump lashed out at Sen. Josh Hawley (R., Mo.) last year over his work with Democrats to advance a bill on a stock-trading ban that would apply to the president and the vice president.