#insider-trading — Trump Fail

The President Posted a Meme of Himself Trading Stocks From Behind the Resolute Desk and Profiting Off Intel — a Company He Personally Bought Shares In and His Own Government Has Propped Up — Captioned "I Do This for Our Country, Not Myself," a Claim That Is False on Its Face Because the Money Is His: He Made $2.2 Billion in 2025 and Ran About 3,600 Stock Trades Worth Over $100 Million in a Single Quarter

In September 2026, Trump posted a meme on Truth Social depicting himself at the Resolute Desk, studying trading screens across four monitors and profiting from a rise in Intel's share price, over the caption: "I do this for our Country, not myself." In an accompanying post he wrote: "I've made Hundreds of Billions of Dollars on Stocks, and many other type Holdings, for the U.S.A., not myself, and all I do is get criticized by the Radical Left Dumocrats." The boast is self-refuting in two ways. First, personal stock profits are, by definition, personal — they accrue to Trump, not to the country, so "for the Country, not myself" describes the opposite of what stock trading does. Second, the choice of Intel is self-incriminating: Office of Government Ethics filings show Trump personally bought Intel shares earlier in 2026 (between $50,000 and $100,000 on February 3, and more on March 11, 13, 17, and 23), even though the U.S. government itself acquired a 10% stake in Intel in August 2025 — the textbook conflict of interest that presidents have historically avoided by placing assets in a blind trust, which Trump has not done. The scale is staggering: about 3,600 stock trades in the first quarter of 2026 alone, worth more than $100 million, and a 2025 financial disclosure showing $2.2 billion in income. His "hundreds of billions" is itself an exaggeration of even that enormous figure. The president is not hiding the profiteering; he is turning it into a meme and daring anyone to object.

House Democrats Opened an Investigation Into Donald Trump Jr.'s Venture Capital Firm, 1789 Capital — Which Ballooned From a Few Million Dollars to Roughly $3 Billion After He Joined It Just as His Father Retook the White House — Because Its Bets on Startups That Then Won Federal Loans, Contracts, and Favorable Rulings Were Timed, in Rep. Raskin's Words, With "Almost Clairvoyant Accuracy"

In a story first reported by MS NOW, House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin has opened an investigation into Donald Trump Jr. and 1789 Capital, the venture capital firm he joined shortly after his father returned to the White House in January 2025. The question Raskin is pressing is straightforward: has the firm's remarkable success been powered by access to the Trump administration? The numbers are eye-catching. 1789 Capital was reportedly worth only a few million dollars when Trump Jr. came aboard; it is now valued at roughly $3 billion. Raskin's letter points to a run of investments timed with "almost clairvoyant accuracy" — portfolio companies including Vulcan Elements, Anduril, Juul Labs, and Polymarket that subsequently benefited from federal funding, contracts, or regulatory decisions. The starkest example: 1789 took an undisclosed stake in the rare-earth startup Vulcan Elements in 2025 — when it was valued around $200 million — roughly three months before the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan to the company. Two crucial caveats: no wrongdoing has been proven, and 1789's counsel dismisses the allegations as "unsubstantiated talking points" and "repackaging press clippings on congressional letterhead." And because Democrats are in the House minority, Raskin cannot compel a single document or witness — Republicans already blocked a related subpoena in March. This is a demand letter and a preview of the oversight Democrats promise if they win the House in November, not an empowered probe. But the pattern it lays out — the president's son growing a fortune a thousandfold on bets that keep coinciding with his father's government writing checks — is the kind of thing that, in a normal administration, would not need a minority letter to trigger scrutiny.

They Did It Anyway: Trump Media Launched the Truth API Exactly on Schedule on August 1 — Selling $100,000-a-Month Early Access to the President's Market-Moving Posts — Days After Senators Referred It to the SEC as Illegal Insider Trading and a Former SEC Official Called It "Misappropriated Information"

When Trump Media unveiled the Truth API — a paid feed selling banks and high-frequency traders a millisecond head start on the president's market-moving Truth Social posts for up to $100,000 a month — the objections were immediate and bipartisan in their substance. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Adam Schiff wrote to the SEC on July 29 calling it "an outrageous abuse of the President's office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets." Rep. Ritchie Torres pressed the SEC on what he labeled the "insider trading API." Renée Jones, a former top SEC official, told NPR the arrangement appears to run afoul of insider-trading law: "If the president's Truth Social posts are being monetized, and if some people get special access to them, that's misappropriated information." None of it mattered. On August 1, 2026 — on schedule, without modification — the Truth API went live. Institutional clients now receive the president's posts before the public, and the president's company collects the fees. The launch is its own, separate scandal from the plan to launch: it is the moment the administration was told, in writing, by U.S. senators and former regulators, that a product might be criminal insider trading and monetized state power — and shipped it anyway, betting that an SEC run by Trump's own appointees will never investigate the president's own company. The going-live, over the objection, is the point.

Trump's Media Company — Which He Owns Nearly 60% Of — Will Sell Wall Street a Millisecond Head Start on His Own Market-Moving Truth Social Posts for Up to $100,000 a Month, Letting High-Frequency Traders Trade on Presidential Announcements Before the Public Even Sees Them

Trump Media & Technology Group unveiled "Truth API," a paid, licensed data feed that gives banks and high-frequency trading firms "the fastest" access to posts from the 10 most influential Truth Social accounts — Trump's being "by far the most prominent" — delivering them to paying clients up to a thousandth of a second before the public gets them. The fee runs up to $100,000 per month, or $60,000 a month on a three-year plan. It launches August 1, 2026, and the company says it has already signed up customers, including high-frequency trading firms and financial news organizations. The value is obvious and specific: Trump's posts routinely move markets. On April 2, 2025, his "Liberation Day" tariff post helped send stocks down nearly 5%; days later, "THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!!" — announcing a 90-day tariff pause — sent them up 9.5%, adding $4 trillion to the S&P 500; his June 2025 "THE CEASEFIRE IS NOW IN EFFECT" post instantly moved oil. Selling a head start on those announcements to the fastest traders is, in effect, monetizing advance access to U.S. government policy. Ordinary conflict-of-interest law would bar a federal official from owning a company that profits off his office — but the president and vice president are explicitly exempt from that provision, and Trump owns roughly 60% of Trump Media (a stake worth about $2 billion on paper, held in a revocable trust controlled by Donald Trump Jr.). Ethics experts were blunt. Kathleen Clark of Washington University: "He's selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president... yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself." The Project on Government Oversight's Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette: "It's odious, selling access to the highest bidders." The move comes as Trump Media flails — DJT stock is down roughly 70% since he took office, closing around $9.66 against a pre-inauguration price near $40, with losses topping $1 billion — making the one asset that still reliably prints money the presidency itself.

Trump Made 3,700 Stock Trades Worth Up to $750 Million — Then His Government Handed Those Companies Contracts and Favors

Financial disclosures reveal Trump made over 3,700 stock trades in Q1 2026 totaling $220M-$750M. The pattern: buy stock, then promote the company or award it a government contract. He bought up to $5M in Dell, told Americans to "buy a Dell computer," then the Pentagon gave Dell a $9.7B contract. He bought TKO (UFC's parent) stock, then staged a UFC fight on the White House lawn. He bought AMD stock on January 6 — a week before Commerce authorized AMD to sell chips to China. He bought Oracle stock as his administration helped Oracle secure TikTok. Jim Cramer was speechless. His investments are not in a blind trust. JD Vance's defense: "The president doesn't sit at the Oval Office on his Robinhood account." The fine for missing his disclosure deadline: $200.

3,700 Trades in 3 Months: Trump's Financial Disclosure Reveals Astonishing Trading Activity as He Props and Drops Companies

Trump's financial disclosure to the Office of Government Ethics revealed 3,642 securities transactions in Q1 2026 — roughly 60 trades per trading day, valued at $220M–$750M. He's buying and selling Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, Meta, Boeing, and dozens more — the same companies whose stock prices move when he announces tariffs, approves chip deals, or shifts policy. Wall Street insiders called the volume "astonishing."

Hegseth's Broker Tried to Make Multimillion-Dollar Defense Investment Before Iran War

The Financial Times reported that Defense Secretary Hegseth's Morgan Stanley broker contacted BlackRock in February about a multimillion-dollar investment in a defense ETF holding Lockheed Martin, RTX, and Northrop Grumman — weeks before the Iran war. The trade didn't go through only because the fund wasn't available yet.

$580M in Oil Trades Minutes Before Trump's Iran Post — "Mind-Blowing Corruption"

6,200 oil futures contracts ($580M) traded in a single minute, 15 minutes before Trump reversed his Iran stance on Truth Social. $1.5B in S&P futures were bought 5 minutes before. A Nobel laureate called it "treason."