THE NEW YORKER DAILY: Trump’s Profiteering Hits $4 Billion

 

Saturday, January 31, 2026

The New Yorker’s award-winning journalism is made possible by our subscribers. Become one today » How much has the Trump family made off the Presidency? An updated investigation. Plus: • One last Sundance in Park City • Miami’s Haitian community braces for deportations • The Minnesota students in federal custody

 

David D. Kirkpatrick Staff writer It has been a lucrative year for the Trump family. In just the past six months or so, a bitcoin mining company headed by Eric Trump brought the family more than a hundred million dollars. Promotions by a major crypto exchange (whose founder the President recently pardoned) have positioned the family to pull in about a hundred and thirty-six million dollars. A convoluted deal that turned a company into a stockpile of Trump-linked digital tokens appears to have brought the family another five hundred and sixty-two million dollars. And crypto is hardly the only family business. The Trumps sold the use of their name to a Saudi real-estate company that is close to the royal family for a resort in the Maldives and two other new megaprojects inside the kingdom. Donald Trump, Jr., made millions by reinventing himself as an adviser or director to half a dozen companies. And President Trump, whose Administration regulates the banking and securities industries, filed a lawsuit against JPMorgan Chase demanding five billion dollars—not as a deposit in the U.S. Treasury but as a check made out to Donald J. Trump. Illustration by Erik Carter This past summer, I set out to tally up just how much the Trumps have made off the Presidency—to sum it all up in a number. The total then was $3.4 billion. Nearly six months later, at the end of Trump’s first year back in the White House, I am updating my reporting: the total has now reached four billion dollars. Trump promised at the start of his first term that neither he nor his family would ever do anything that might even be “perceived to be exploitive of the office of the Presidency.” But all the deals I included in my tally do precisely that. A few of the Trump family’s recent deals—such as those with the Saudis, or the crypto exchange—even create the appearance of a potential payoff. When asked recently why he had abandoned his former restraint, Trump told the Times that he had discovered “nobody cared.” Is the public really so nonchalant? A year in, the Presidential money-making continues. Read the story Editor’s Pick One Last Sundance in Park City Illustration by Sydney Smith As the film festival bids farewell to its Utah roots, our film critic Justin Chang reflects on this year’s edition—and considers Sundance’s wider role as America’s most significant launchpad for independent cinema. And, below, he shares some of his most unforgettable moviegoing experiences from twenty years of attending the festival. “Higher Ground” (2011): “Vera Farmiga’s devastatingly clear-eyed story of faith and spirituality could be the most beautiful movie I’ve ever ugly-cried through at Sundance.” “Compliance” (2012): “Craig Zobel’s searing psychological drama, about a real-life Stanley Milgram experiment in a small town, drew ferocious pushback from the audience at its very first screening. I still remember the angry charges from viewers that the movie had veered, unforgivably, into exploitation—and the filmmakers’ unerringly sharp, persuasive rebuttals.” “Before Midnight” (2013) and “Boyhood” (2014): “A cheat of an entry, perhaps, but in two consecutive years, I emerged from a Sundance screening wondering, Is Richard Linklater the greatest director in America?” “Call Me by Your Name” (2017): “Luca Guadagnino’s magnificent summer-of-love drama warmed up the festival like few other films I’ve seen here. I wanted to dance on the snowy sidewalks afterward, black ice be damned.” “Past Lives” (2023): “You could feel the audience in the Eccles Theatre hold its collective breath as Celine Song’s achingly wistful and philosophical romance unfolded for the first time—a foreshadowing of the spell that it would cast in theatres upon release.” More from The New Yorker The Lede ICE’s Assault on a Minnesota School District Liam Ramos, whose photo became a symbol of Operation Metro Surge, is one of several students in Columbia Heights who are now in federal custody. By Jessica Winter The Lede Miami’s Haitian Community Braces for Deportations The Trump Administration’s plan to end Temporary Protected Status for immigrants from Haiti puts hundreds of thousands at risk of returning to a country in crisis. By Edwidge Danticat Shuffalo Play Today’s Shuffalo Can you make a longer word with each new letter? Today’s Cartoon Cartoon by Will McPhail “It’s crazy how much we have in common now that I’ve hijacked your entire personality.” See more cartoons P.S. “Generation after generation, my family’s old people sat at this window to watch the year.” Donald Hall on the pleasures of being inside, looking out, on a cold winter’s day. Ian Crouch contributed to today’s edition.

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