 "US President Donald Trump's riches have grown in the last year. File Photo/Reuters")
United States President Donald Trump is on top of the world. He returned to the White in January this year and has also more than doubled his fortune.
All of this happened in mere months. Trump, who was in legal and financial trouble a year back, has got his house in order. The US president has ranked 700th on the 2025 Forbes Billionaires List.
Let’s take a closer look.
Trump doubles wealth
Donald Trump has more than doubled his wealth, increasing his riches from an estimated $2.3 billion to $5.1 billion.
This is a rise from his $3 billion net worth pegged in 2022 and $4.6 billion in 2016. Most of Trump’s wealth is rooted in real estate, extending from residential and office buildings in New York City to golf courses and hotels all over the world.
He is evaluated to have $800 million in liquid assets.
How Trump changed his fortune
Last March, Trump had to shell out $454 million in cash in a New York civil fraud case . His balance sheet showed $413 million of cash. There were speculations that the Republican leader could file for bankruptcy.
New York Attorney General Letitia James had threatened to seize Trump’s assets if he failed to pay the fine.
The amount was later reduced to $175 million after his lawyers convinced the court it was “impossible” to secure a bond of that size. While he appeals the verdict in the case, interest is accruing on the bond, taking the total to $500 million.
But this is no longer a worry for Trump as his financial future is secure, at least in the near future.
The US President’s most valuable asset is the parent company of his social media platform, Truth Social. Trump took the Trump Media & Technology Group public, in which he holds a $2.6 billion stake.
It is a popular stock on retail trading forums, with the value of the shares wildly fluctuating in the past, including around the US presidential election in November.
“Donald Trump has presided over the most lucrative post-presidency in American history, selling his supporters NFTs [non-fungible tokens], coffee-table books and, most importantly, shares of a money-losing social-media venture,” says the Forbes list.
One of Trump’s most unforeseen windfalls has come from his cryptocurrency. As per a Reuters report, the Trump family took control of World Liberty Financial, a crypto venture launched last fall, as it raised more than half a billion dollars.
After Trump won the November elections, Justin Sun, a Hong Kong-based crypto entrepreneur invested $30 million in $WLFI tokens. He claims his investment has since increased to $75 million.
Trump made $245 million after tax from token sales as the demand increased for the cryptocurrency, as per Forbes.
Days before he returned to the White House, Trump launched $TRUMP, a meme coin . It had become one of the most valuable crypto coins soon after its launch. The digital token has generated an estimated $350 million, sending at least $110 million after tax to Trump.
The 78-year-old has promised to be the “crypto president” by making cryptocurrency mainstream in America.
How rich is ‘First Buddy’?
Trump’s close aide and key backer Elon Musk has again emerged as the world’s richest man on the Forbes billionaires list.
Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX and X (formerly Twitter), saw his net worth surge by 75 per cent to about $342 billion. The second spot on the list was taken by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg worth $216 billion and third by Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos worth $215 billion.
Forbes’ 39th annual World’s Billionaires list, released on Tuesday, features the highest number of billionaires at 3,028, since its launch in 1987. There are a record 15 individuals with 12-figure wealth on the list this time.
The billionaires have a $16.1 trillion collective net worth.
With inputs from agencies