Washington, D.C. — Today, the Center for American Progress updated its “Trump’s Take” income tracker, revealing that the First Family has now amassed more than $2 billion in cash and gifts from deals that appear to be selling the presidency since the November 2024 election. The surge follows a bombshell report from The Wall Street Journal detailing a secret $500 million deal between the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, World Liberty Financial (WLF), and an investment vehicle backed by a high-ranking United Arab Emirates (UAE) royal.
The Wall Street Journal investigation found that just four days before President Trump’s second inauguration, representatives for Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan—the UAE’s national security adviser—signed an agreement to acquire a 49 percent stake in WLF. Documents show that $187 million of the upfront payment was steered directly to Trump family-controlled entities.
“As grocery bills, health care premiums, housing, and utility costs continue to climb for families across the country, the Trump family has pocketed more than $2 billion worth of cash and gifts from shady crypto ventures, secret deals with foreign royals, and payouts from corporate giants over the past 15 months,” said Will Ragland, vice president of research at CAP and architect of the “Trump’s Take” tracker.
The “Trump’s Take” tracker focuses exclusively on liquid income and gifts received after the November 2024 victory, stripping away preexisting assets to show the true cost of presidential self-dealing. CAP’s methodology uses realtime data from the blockchain to calculate income from Trump’s crypto ventures. Other estimates from The New York Times and Reuters use analysis that only measured crypto income from the first six months of 2025.
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