Forty-nine years ago, in January 1977, Jimmy Carter gave up his peanut farm. It was first a key feature of his political persona as a Washington outsider, but it became a potential conflict of interest as he prepared to assume the presidency.
Put simply: If Americans knew Carter stood to make money from his own decisions on agricultural policy, how could they trust him to work in their interest at all?
The country was still grappling with Watergate fallout, and Carter had campaigned on restoring public trust in government. During his time in the White House, he established strict ethics standards and demanded full financial disclosures from his entire administration.
As a result, Carter’s farm was put in a blind trust, and by the end of his term, it wound up in debt.
Almost five decades later, and nearly a year into Donald Trump’s second term, it’s clear that Carter and the current president did not approach this issue similarly.
Trump has transformed the presidency into a moneymaking enterprise that has doubled his net worth — at least — and increased the wealth of his friends and family as well.
With Carter, the public was worried about farming policies. With Trump, conflicts of interest arise in almost every pocket of policy there is. In fact, they are bound to pop up everywhere because of the fact that the president has shown he is open for business.
First with the big number: Trump has seen his net worth skyrocket since assuming the presidency, from $2.3 billion in 2024 to $6.7 billion by the end of 2025, according to Forbes. (Net worth, I should note, is a squishy number that combines actual cash on hand, debts and assets, including real estate and stock in companies.)
Before the president’s first term, his son Eric, who runs the Trump Organization, chose to swear off foreign deals while his father was in the White House. However, that doesn’t appear to be the policy this time around.
The Trump Organization has struck branding deals on real estate projects around the world, including in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Maldives.
Many of these deals, like the golf course in Qatar and the hotels in Saudi Arabia, involve real estate firms with close ties to their nations’ governments. These nations have received security deals, access to American markets and diplomatic cover for their authoritarian actions.
It’s unclear just how much the president and his company make from each of these licensing agreements, although each deal is estimated to be worth millions based on other licensing deals Trump has disclosed over the years.
However, most of the money the president made last year wasn’t through real estate; it was in cryptocurrency. Three days before taking the oath of office, Trump announced the launch of the Trump meme coin, a cryptocurrency with no intrinsic value besides its speculative price.
The coin shot up in value before collapsing just as quickly, but every purchase of the coin nets a fee that goes straight into the president’s pocket.
The Trump coin, and a matching meme coin named after first lady Melania Trump, have netted the president and his business partners $427 million in sales and trading fees, according to an analysis by the Financial Times.
The Trump family’s cryptocurrency firm, World Liberty Financial, has netted them hundreds of millions of dollars in fees, according to that same analysis.
About the Author
