Newly unearthed financial records that reveal Donald Trump’s stock purchases in companies that do massive business with his administration raise fresh concerns about the potential scale of his profiteering off the presidency.
This issue came into focus in November, when financial disclosure forms showed Trump had made investments in corporate and municipal bonds, including some from tech firms and big banks regulated by the federal government. Last month, Reuters reported that Trump purchased at least$51 million in bonds in March alone.
Sludge, which reports on money in politics, reported Thursday on disclosure forms showing that Trump invested and traded stock in several companies over the past year, including Palantir and Nvidia. Palantir has hoovered up government contracts over the past year, assisting everything from the president’s racist anti-immigrant crackdown to his surveillance efforts.
Trump purchased millions of dollars worth of Oracle stock as his administration has facilitated a deal for the U.S. operations of TikTok, in which the tech company is invested, according to the disclosure. In December, Trump issued an executive order seeking federal preemption of state regulations on artificial intelligence, then in the following months bought stock in Nvidia, AMD, Creweave, KLA Corp., and other AI industry stocks. His funds also traded six-figure amounts of stock in government contractor Palantir.
Paired with the reports of Trump apparently trying to extract funds from the federal government as part of his dubious legal crusade against the IRS, the numerous stories of the Trump family enriching itself with cryptocurrency deals and other half-baked cash grabs, and the Trump administration inking deals with drone companies backed by the president’s sons, this latest news about the president’s stock purchases lends credence to the notion that Trump is overseeing the most corrupt regime in U.S. history.
NOTUS noted that the stock purchases are a departure from Trump’s previous investment strategy:
The disclosure indicates Trump made more than 3,600 individual stock and other financial trades during the first three months of 2026. This represents a shift in Trump’s personal investing strategy, as he had largely avoided stocks and invested in corporate and municipal bonds during the first year of his second presidential term.
Among what I feel to be the obvious concerns about Trump’s profiteering are the extent to which his anti-immigrant agenda stands to enrich him and his family. That the president of the United States has been financially entangled with a prominent company involved in his immigration crackdown, such as Palantir, raises all kinds of red flags about the motivations behind this crackdown.
A White House spokesperson told NOTUS in a statement that Trump’s assets are “in a trust managed by his children,” adding: “There are no conflicts of interest.”
Of course, saying there are no conflicts of interest is not the same as proving such conflicts don’t exist, which is a seemingly impossible task as the president and his family are financially entwined with companies directly influenced by his policymaking.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.