A Forbes report from Monday shows President Donald Trump’s personal businesses took a multi-million dollar hit during his time in the White House, but still donated his presidential salary.
QUICK FACTS:
- A Forbes analysis of Trump’s financial records—some only recently becoming public—reveals that President Trump’s businesses lost revenue while he was in office.
- Forbes scoured property records, ethics disclosures, debt documents, and securities filings.
- In Trump’s first three years as president, his businesses earned “about $650 million annually,” according to the analysis. “But in 2020, revenues plunged to an estimated $450 million as COVID infected [sic] the business.”
- Trump still gave away his $400,000 salary as U.S. president.
HOW MUCH TRUMP LOST:
- Trump’s golf resorts were hit with long shutdowns, “causing his overall golf and club revenues to drop 27% to an estimated $190 million in 2020,” writes Forbes.
- His hotel, licensing, and management businesses dropped to around $50 million in 2020, a fall from “well above $100 million” in prior years.
- President Trump’s Washington, D.C. hotel saw revenues drop to “about $52 million from 2017 to 2019. But when Covid hit, “revenues plunged to less [than] $20 million,” motivating a sell attempt from the Trump Organization.
- “The lack of deals was one reason revenues dropped about 25% to an estimated $450 million,” says Forbes.
WHAT TRUMP SAID ABOUT HIS FINANCIAL HIT DURING COVID:
- “It’s hurting me, and it’s hurting Hilton, and it’s hurting all of the great hotel chains all over the world,” Trump said in a March 2020 White House press conference. “It’s hurting everybody. I mean there are very few businesses that are doing well now.”
- “I wouldn’t say (business is) thriving when you decide to close down your hotels and your businesses,” he said.
