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The 1 Easy Way Donald Trump CouldHave Been Even Richer: Doing NothingBy putting his inheritance into the stock market back in the 1970s, Trump might have been “really rich” without all
the drama.
S.V. Dáte@SVDATE
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Sept. 2, 2015, 1:25 p.m.}
A s “really rich” as Don ald Trump is today, he might have been
even rich er if, in stead of dab bling in sky scrapers and casi nos,
he’d simply taken his eightfig ure in her it ance dec ades ago and sunk it
in to the stock mar ket.
Had the celebrity busi ness man and Re pub lic an pres id en tial can did ate
in ves ted his even tu al share of his fath er’s reales tate com pany in to a mu
tu al fund of S&P 500 stocks in 1974, it would be worth nearly $3 bil lion
today, thanks to the mar ket’s per form ance over the past four dec ades. If
he’d in ves ted the $200 mil lion that For bes magazine de term ined he was
Bloomberg AFP/Getty
DAILY DAYBOOK HOTLINE RACE TRACKER PRESENTATIONS DATA & CHARTS ALMANAC EVENTS MY ACCOUNTU
donald trump
forbes
index fund
net worth
stock market
worth in 1982 in to that in dex fund, it would have grown to more than $8
bil lion today.
Even the smal ler fig ure ex ceeds the lower range of his pos sible net worth
as re por ted to the Fed er al Elec tion Com mis sion, while the lar ger num ber
ex ceeds by bil lions re cent es tim ates of Trump’s worth by fin an cial pub
lic a tions. And it would have come without the highdrama, rollercoast er
ca reer that has in cluded four cor por ate bank ruptcies.
That a purely un man aged in dex fund’s re turn could out per form Trump’s
handson wheel ing and deal ing calls in to ques tion one of Trump’s chief
selling points on the cam paign trail: his busi ness acu men.
Inside the GOP Plan to Prevent Donald Trump’sThird-Party RunParty leaders believe that with a light touch, they can keep Trump from a Ross Perot-style fiasco in the general election. But it’s an embrace that comes at a cost.
Among those drop ping dried corn ker nels in to Trump’s jar at the Iowa
State Fair last month, many cited Trump’s busi ness ex per i ence as a top
reas on he’d make a good pres id ent—a no tion that sup port ers in New
Hamp shire also share. “He’s a good busi ness man,” said Bed ford, New
Hamp shire, re tir ee Frank Savino. “He cre ates a lot of jobs.”
Trump’s cam paign did not re spond to Na tion al Journ al quer ies about
his story. Trump him self fre quently speaks of his great wealth—he
claims it ex ceeds $10 bil lion—as proof of his skill as a ne go ti at or, which
he says cur rent Amer ic an of fi cials lack in their deal ings with oth er coun
tries.
“Who would you rather have ne go ti at ing against China, against Ir an?” he
asked a Dubuque, Iowa, audi ence last week. “Jeb Bush, Hil lary Clin ton,
or Trump?”
***
“I’m proud of my net worth,” Trump said dur ing his June an nounce ment
speech. “I’ve done an amaz ing job.”
Trump has spent dec ades mak ing sure that the pub lic be lieves he’s ex
tremely rich. In 1982, as For bes magazine put to geth er the first of its an
nu al list of the wealth i est Amer ic ans, Trump ar gued to ed it ors that he
was worth $400 mil lion, not the $200 mil lion the magazine as signed
him. It was only the first of many such lob by ing ef forts.
“Every year, Trump shares a lot of in form a tion with us that helps us get
to the fig ures we pub lish. But he also con sist ently pushes for a high er net
worth—es pe cially when it comes to the value of his per son al brand,” For
bes re port er Erin Carlyle wrote this June, ex plain ing the magazine’s as
sess ment that Trump was worth $4.1 bil lion, less than half of his claimed
sess ment that Trump was worth $4.1 bil lion, less than half of his claimed
net worth. A sub sequent re view by Bloomberg found he was worth $2.9
bil lion.
While many Trump sup port ers be lieve he is a selfmade man, it was ac
tu ally his fath er, Fred Trump, who built the reales tate em pire that Don
ald Trump took over in 1974. It was worth about $200 mil lion at the
time, which Trump and his four sib lings ul ti mately in her ited after en joy
ing siz able trust funds for years.
(Co in cid ent ally, there was a selfmade busi ness man who was also worth
about $40 mil lion in 1974: War ren Buf fett. Had Trump al lowed Buf fett
to man age his for tune, too, Trump might also be worth what Buf fett is
today: about $67 bil lion—or about 22 times bet ter than what the stock
mar ket would have pro duced.)
Be cause Trump’s busi nesses are privately held con cerns, they’re not re
quired to file Se cur it ies and Ex change Com mis sion re ports, as pub licly
traded com pan ies must do. Even the fin an cial dis clos ure Trump had to
file after start ing his pres id en tial cam paign of fers only lim ited guid ance
be cause it asks for val ues in broad ranges, with a top cat egory of “over
$50 mil lion.”
A Na tion al Journ al re view of that 92page doc u ment found as sets total
ing at least $1.37 bil lion and li ab il it ies total ing at least $265 mil lion. But
Trump claims 22 as sets he says are worth more than $50 mil lion each
and four loans also ex ceed ing $50 mil lion. Which means that based
solely on that doc u ment, Trump could the or et ic ally be worth $100 bil
lion—or be $100 bil lion in debt.
Jeb Bush’s Donald Trump DistractionThe former Florida governor’s biggest rival for the nomination isn’t Donald Trump. It’sJohn Kasich and Marco Rubio.
Per haps the most deeply re searched ac count of his wealth is a dec ade
old: the book TrumpN a tion, by former New York Times journ al ist Tim
O’Bri en, who found three sources close to Trump who es tim ated that he
was worth between $150 mil lion and $250 mil lion. (That same year,
Trump was claim ing a net worth of $6 bil lion, and For bes found a value
of $2.6 bil lion.)
Trump’s re sponse? To ac cuse his as so ci ates who gave O’Bri en that es
tim ate of hav ing obese wives. “You can go ahead and speak to guys who
have 400pound wives at home who are jeal ous of me, but the guys who
really know me know I’m a great build er,” he told O’Bri en.
Trump wound up su ing O’Bri en for de fam a tion, claim ing his book had
dam aged his busi ness. The suit was even tu ally dis missed, but not be fore
Trump sat for a de pos ition in which he ad mit ted that he routinely ex ag
Trump sat for a de pos ition in which he ad mit ted that he routinely ex ag
ger ated the val ues of his prop er ties.
“I think every body does,” he said in the de pos ition. “Who wouldn’t?”
Trump said his es tim ate of his net worth on any giv en day was based on
a lot of dif fer ent factors—in clud ing his mood. “My net worth fluc tu ates,
and it goes up and down with the mar kets and with at ti tudes and with
feel ings, even my own feel ings,” Trump told O’Bri en’s law yer. “I would
say it’s my gen er al at ti tude at the time that the ques tion may be asked.
And as I say, it var ies.”
(This sum mer, when Trump’s cam paign is sued a press re lease that
stated, in all cap it al let ters, that Trump was worth TEN BIL LION DOL
LARS, O’Bri en wrote a column for Bloomberg View that an nounced that
he, too, was worth $10 bil lion, based on his own feel ings.)
That 2007 de pos ition also re vealed that in 2005, two sep ar ate banks had
as sessed Trump’s as sets and li ab il it ies be fore agree ing to lend him
money. One, North Fork Bank, de cided he was worth $1.2 bil lion, while
Deutsche Bank found he was worth no more than $788 mil lion.
***
Wheth er Trump is ac tu ally worth $4 bil lion or $1 bil lion or merely hun
dreds of mil lions likely makes little dif fer ence to the typ ic al voter, who in
any of those cases can claim but a tiny frac tion of that fin an cial where
with al. But the dis tinc tion could af fect Trump’s will ing ness to spend his
own money on his pres id en tial race—par tic u larly if it’s as a thirdparty
can did ate with little like li hood of suc cess.
Trump wound up spend ing $1.4 mil lion on his cam paign through the
end of June, all but $92,000 of which was his own money. He has con
tin ued hir ing staff and fly ing to events on his per son al 757 jet liner—
which burns $10,000 of fuel every hour it’s in the air. It’s un clear how
many ac tu al con tri bu tions are now com ing to the cam paign or wheth er
Trump will so li cit big dona tions to a proTrump su per PAC. In speeches
so far, he has told audi ences that he doesn’t want big donors be cause
they will then want fa vors in re turn should he win. “I don’t need any
body’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need any body’s money. I’m us ing my own
money. I’m not us ing the lob by ists. I’m not us ing donors. I don’t care.
I’m really rich,” Trump said in his Ju ly an nounce ment speech.
But should Trump want to pay for a ser i ous pres id en tial run just at the
time when a cam paign must shift in to a high er gear and cost dra mat ic
ally more, it could quickly eat in to his ready cash.
Ac cord ing to Trump’s fin an cialdis clos ure state ment, he has no more
than $63 mil lion in cash, moneymar ket ac counts, or sim il ar hold ings,
and as little as $13.1 mil lion. He also has as much as $169 mil lion and as
little as $65 mil lion in stocks, bonds, and sim il ar in stru ments.
Everything else is tied up in real es tate or air craft, ac cord ing to the dis
clos ure.
So while Trump said last month he’s ready to spend $1 bil lion on his
cam paign—“If ne ces sary, I will spend it, yes”—one GOP con sult ant is not
buy ing it.
“From where?” wondered Flor ida’s Rick Wilson, a fre quent Trump crit ic.
“I will be lieve it when I see it. That’s the bull shit call of this cam paign: Is
he really go ing to spend a $100 mil lion?”
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