Trump’s Business Empire: An Update On His Sources Of Revenue

VPM | By Peter Overby

Published June 20, 2017 at 7:53 PM EDT

Updated April 20, 2023

President Trump has updated his financial disclosure report, published by the Office of Government Ethics.

President Trump has updated his personal financial disclosure report from last year, and here NPR updates our December 2016 analysis of that earlier report.

The new filing, published by the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), adds some insight into the president’s sprawling business network. But not too much insight. Trump’s Form 278, or “executive branch personnel public financial disclosure report,” by no means gives a complete picture of his wealth, and his financial strengths and weaknesses.

That’s not what the report is meant to do.

“What the 278 is designed to do is detect conflicts of interest,” said Stuart Gilman, former special assistant to the OGE director. So it discloses revenue, and estimates value, for each of Trump’s hundreds of business entities. But it is silent on their expenses. And there’s nothing on taxes, which Trump has refused to release elsewhere. The form requires disclosure of transactions that exceed $1,000, and gifts worth more than $375, but Trump reported nothing in either category.

As Gilman said, “An accountant would go crazy with this.”

Three things are worth noting about the numbers released on Friday:

First, Trump didn’t have to do this; his next disclosure isn’t required until May 2018.

Second, his lawyers wanted to file the report without his signature, which certifies the information is “true, complete and correct to the best of your knowledge.” The Office of Government Ethics insisted on the signature.

And third, Trump’s reports are unlike those of any other president. Since disclosure was mandated in 1978, all other chief executives have put their wealth into blind trusts or taken other steps to avoid conflicts of interest. Trump moved most of his companies into a trust, but he made himself the sole beneficiary of the trust, and the businesses in the trust are managed by his two oldest sons and a longtime business associate.

Finding trends across Trump’s 2016 and 2017 reports is impossible because they cover different lengths of time. The latest report shows assets and revenues from January 2016 through April 15, 2017. The previous one covered the period from January 2015 through May 15, 2016.

NOTE: All companies, locations and revenues listed below are as reported by Trump in his Office of Government Ethics filing. In most cases, Trump reported revenues; in some, only ranges. We are including only revenue-generating assets and activities that discernibly fall into the categories below, based on the description reported on the form.

International

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Golf Courses

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Hotels

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Real Estate

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Entertainment

Food And Beverage

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Retail

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Aircraft

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NPR intern Mollie Simon contributed to this report.

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Peter Overby

Peter Overby has covered Washington power, money, and influence since a foresighted NPR editor created the beat in 1994.

Overby has covered scandals involving House Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Bill Clinton, lobbyist Jack Abramoff and others. He tracked the rise of campaign finance regulation as Congress passed campaign finance reform laws, and the rise of deregulation as Citizens United and other Supreme Court decisions rolled those laws back.

During President Trump's first year in office, Overby was on a team of NPR journalists covering conflicts of interest sparked by the Trump family business. He did some of the early investigations of dark money, dissecting a money network that influenced a Michigan judicial election in 2013, and — working with the Center for Investigative Reporting — surfacing below-the-radar attack groups in the 2008 presidential election.

In 2009, Overby co-reported Dollar Politics, a multimedia series on lawmakers, lobbyists and money as the Senate debated the Affordable Care Act. The series received an award for excellence from the Capitol Hill-based Radio and Television Correspondents Association. Earlier, he won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Silver Baton for his coverage of the 2000 elections and 2001 Senate debate on campaign finance reform.

Prior to NPR, Overby was an editor/reporter for Common Cause Magazine, where he shared an Investigative Reporters and Editors award. He worked on daily newspapers for 10 years, and has freelanced for publications ranging from Utne Reader and the Congressional Quarterly Guide To Congress to the Los Angeles Times and Washington Post.

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