In the modern era starting with Franklin D Roosevelt’s presidency in 1933, several presidents have had relatives who sought to profit from their ties to White House.
Jimmy Carter’s brother promoted a beer brand. While
Joe Biden served as vice-president, his son Hunter Biden made money from a Ukrainian energy company.
But historians said those past examples pale in comparison to the profits made by Trump and his family business since he returned to office.
“This is the big distinction between Trump and his family and other presidents,” said Perry, the presidential historian.
“Making money hand over fist in office, it’s not illegal but it is unethical. Most [past] presidents didn’t want to do that.”
Before starting his first term in 2017, Trump handed control of his family business, the Trump Organization, to his adult sons. But the move broke with the precedent set by past presidents because Trump did not place his business interests in a traditional blind trust or divest from his real estate holdings and other investments.
Trump took similar steps ahead of his second term.
The Trump Organization said before his second inauguration that he would not be involved in the company’s day-to-day dealings while serving as president.
Eric Trump said at the time that the Trump Organization would follow “robust ethical standards” during the president’s second term.
Still, Trump has made a number of moves in the White House that have benefited his business as well as businesses tied to other senior administration officials.
Last July, Trump signed legislation supporting stablecoins, a form of cryptocurrency, just four months after World Liberty Financial launched its own digital currency venture. The firm made Trump at least $500m in 2025, according to his financial disclosure report.
Last October, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao, the billionaire founder of the cryptocurrency firm Binance.
The move came as Trump praised the crypto industry in his first months back in office, after having dismissed it in the past as a “disaster waiting to happen”.
Trump’s family business and some close associates have profited in other industries beyond cryptocurrency since he returned to the White House.
Last year Trump struck a deal with the president of Kazakhstan giving an American company access to a major critical minerals project in the country, according to a New York Times report.
Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr later took a minority stake in a company involved in the mining project. The investment firm Cantor Fitzgerald – which is run by Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick’s sons – also worked on the deal.
On Wednesday, Trump attributed his profits in office to stock market gains and claimed he was not involved in his family’s business dealings.
“I don’t get involved in my personal [finances], we have funds that run my money,” Trump told reporters. “I’ve made a lot of money before I became president, and they invest my money, and I don’t talk to them.”
Ethics watchdogs argued Trump’s profits from cryptocurrency in particular were problematic.
“Of course it’s a conflict of interest,” Richard Painter, the former chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush, told the BBC.
“This is a very, very troubling situation for the American people to see their president making so much money.”
