Trump’s Businesses Raked In $1.9 Billion Of Revenue During His First Three Years In Office

This article doesn't discuss how some of his deals were apparently made for political favors.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2020/09/11/trumps-businesses-raked-in-19-billion-of-revenue-during-his-first-three-years-in-office/

Dan Alexander

Senior editor at Forbes, covering Donald Trump's business.

Sep 11, 2020,07:00am EDT 

Donald Trump never really got out of business. Sure, he handed day-to-day management of his companies to his children, like a lot of tycoons who get preoccupied with other interests late in life. But the president held onto ownership of his assets after taking office, ensuring that he would continue to generate money while serving in the White House. From 2017 to 2019, the president’s businesses raked in an estimated $1.9 billion of revenue.

It’s a significant sum, no matter how you look at it. Documents from various sources—including private lenders, local governments, federal officials and overseas regulators—help show where the money comes from and roughly how much of it turns into profit. An analysis that relies on those documents and conversations with industry experts, broken down for the first time in the forthcoming book White House, Inc., provides an unprecedented look at the president’s finances, which he has worked so hard to shield from public scrutiny.

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Trump’s golf course and club portfolio produced the biggest chunk of revenue, some $753 million in three years.

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The second-biggest revenue generator is Trump’s collection of commercial real estate assets.

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Golf assets generate smaller amounts of money from lots of people, whereas commercial real estate holdings tend to collect bigger sums from fewer customers. So although there’s a lot of talk about potential influence from Trump’s club members, the customers who can really impact his bottom line are those renting space in his buildings.

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Trump gets additional revenue from a variety of sources, including some that other real estate barons would never consider. In New York City’s Central Park, his business operates a skating rink and a carousel that generated $29 million during the first three years he served as president.

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 A single condo on Park Avenue in Manhattan, dealt to a woman who publicly boasts about her connections to government officials, brought in $15.9 million. A mansion in Beverly Hills, sold to a company connected to an Indonesian tycoon, produced another $13.5 million. Trump’s team promised he would do no new foreign deals while in office, but then he sold $3.2 million worth of land in the Dominican Republic. And on and on. 

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