Before Trump became president, the “Art of the Deal” was littered with failed business ventures and bankruptcies. According to Forbes, before he became a reality television star, Trump’s net worth in 1988 was estimated to be $1 billion. By the following year, his wealth had significantly dropped to $500 million.
This financial failure is astonishing when we consider the wealth Trump inherited and received from his father. According to a New York Times exposé, Fred Trump gave him the equivalent of $413 million (adjusted to 2018 inflation), about $140 million in unpaid loans, and a salary that started at $200,000 per year when he was just three years old—rising to $1 million after college and eventually reaching $5 million annually in his 40s and 50s.
So, for Trump to have such a low net worth during the 1990s demonstrates his lack of business acumen. It would take playing the role of a successful businessman on The Apprentice in 2004 to bring about a financial rebound to about $1 billion. Yet this pales in comparison to how much money he would make as president.
By the time Trump rode down the escalator and declared himself a presidential candidate, his net worth was reported to be about $3.7 billion. By the time he lost—yes, lost—his 2020 reelection, his net worth dropped to $2.5 billion. This figure remained stable during his exile in Mar-a-Lago as he pawned off Bibles, sneakers and trading cards to the gullible.
While campaigning in 2024, months before the election, his net worth substantially increased to about $5.4 billion (although Trump said it was $10 billion). Contributing to this bump in wealth occurred within twelve hours of winning the 2024 election, when his wealth increased by $2.4 billion.
Earlier this year, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt emphatically stated, “It’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit.”
And yet, despite such self-righteous indignation, Trump has finally learned how to monetize the presidency, turning the Oval Office into a personal ATM for self-enrichment. This administration has successfully transformed our democracy into a kleptocracy.
In just the first few months of his presidency, he has jettisoned ethical safeguards through executive orders before an impotent Supreme Court and Congress. Unlike every other president, he has refused to set up a blind trust that severs ties with his companies. Instead, he has leveraged the presidency to funnel wealth into businesses he and his family control.
Additionally, in an unprecedented act of ignoring the emolument clause of the Constitution, Trump brazenly received a $400 million “gift” from Qatar—a jet to be used as Air Force One, and later available to him through his presidential library.
By repealing Biden-era ethics rules, which placed limits on the acceptance of gifts and favors, Trump didn’t just get a plane. More consequentially, he removed the last ethical guardrails designed to hold public officials to the barest minimal moral standard.
Launching $Trump, $Melania, and World Liberty Financial meme currency tokens, hosting fundraising dinners that netted him $148 million, and deregulating the crypto industry to his financial advantage have made the infamous Teapot Dome Scandal seem like amateur hour.
Since Trump’s inauguration, he has made an additional $1 billion through crypto, plus a $2 billion so-called “investment” from the United Arab Emirates. This $3 billion increase comes to about $20 million an hour.
Rather than asking what I can do for my country, Trump asks what his country can do for him. He does so as he unashamedly ushers in flagrant quid pro quo abuses, less interested in the common good than in personal reward.
How accurate is the biblical proverb that warns that “like a roaring lion or a charging bear is an evil ruler over the poor. A ruler who lacks understanding is a cruel oppressor” (Proverbs 28:15-16)? We live under an administration comprised of roaring lions and charging bears devouring the poor for the benefit of the rich. Our president buys the poor with silver and the needy for a pair of sandals.
Consider that the minimum wage is $7.25 and has not increased since 2009. Unsurprisingly, ninety-nine percent of humanity’s wages have declined since the pandemic, while the ten richest billionaires have doubled their fortunes, as has Trump. Living in a country where the highest office in the land funnels wealth upward toward his wealthy compatriots signifies a moral crisis.
Contrary to the myth of the so-called “American Dream,” hard work doesn’t lead to upward mobility. Instead, we are witnessing a widening income gap as those in the middle class find themselves trapped in a downward economic death spiral.
Unfortunately for them, the administration that could have offered support now operates under a new “ethical” framework—one that defines public morality not by accountability through regulation, but by the strategic use of power and wealth. Public duty and responsibility are replaced by a self-interested and self-serving administration that profits at the expense of taxpayers, where the levers of government reward loyalists and punish dissenters.
Maybe we should just be honest with ourselves and simply add one letter to this country’s official motto emblazoned on all our currency: In Gold We Trust.
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Professor of Social Ethics and Latinx Studies at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, Colorado, and a contributing correspondent at Good Faith Media.
