Don Jr.’s Net Worth Grew 6x During 2025

Crypto, government contracts, and real estate deals are enriching the president’s son.

This article is part one in a series called ‘Profiles in Corruption,’ where we shine a light on the personal financial interests of people close to the president.

With the amount of gold on display in the Oval Office today, it appears the president has ushered in a new Gilded Age. In taking a peek at the increasing wealth of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., the current political era starts to resemble the Gilded Age not only aesthetically, but also politically.

According to Forbes, Don Jr.’s net worth increased sixfold between November 2024 and December 2025. When his father was elected in November 2024, Don Jr. was worth about $50 million. Thirteen months later, fueled largely by his cryptocurrency investments, his net worth was estimated at around $300 million. That is a 500 percent increase. (Pop quiz: Without checking your portfolio, do you think your net worth increased sixfold last year?)

Such enormous growth in the net worth of someone so closely linked to the president warrants serious scrutiny. The kind of corruption we see with Don Jr. is straightforward: he is leveraging his proximity to the president to enrich himself. (Whether his conduct is illegal or just unethical is not for us to say.) As Don Jr. reaps millions, regular Americans are left carrying the economic burden of the Trump administration’s policies.

Cryptocurrency: Policy as a Product

The single largest driver of Don Jr.’s wealth accumulation has been his pivot into cryptocurrency. For starters, it’s worth acknowledging that the nascent crypto industry is heavily reliant on favorable federal regulations. As president, Donald Trump has the power to influence those regulatory frameworks. By signing the GENIUS Act into law on July 18, 2025, Trump leaned into a policy of making the United States the “crypto capital of the world.”

Simultaneously, the Trump family built the vehicles to profit from this shift. Donald Trump announced World Liberty Financial in September 2024, listing Don Jr. as a Co-Founder. The company’s mechanism driving money into the family’s pockets is explicit: the Trump family earns 75 cents on every dollar worth of WLFI tokens sold by World Liberty Financial. As of December 2025, the Trumps had profited $1 billion in proceeds while holding $3 billion worth of unsold tokens.

Don Jr. also invested in the physical infrastructure side of the industry, joining Dominari Holdings and American Bitcoin to build data centers just months before the president issued an executive order to provide “loans, grants, and tax incentives” for exactly those types of projects.

With the policy set and the businesses in place, foreign capital flooded into the Trumps’ crypto holdings. Four days before Trump’s inauguration in 2025, associates of Sheikh Tahnoun bin Zayed Al Nahyan—the National Security Advisor of the United Arab Emirates—secretly signed a deal to purchase a 49 percent stake in World Liberty Financial for $500 million. Of the initial $250 million payment, $187 million landed in Trump family entities. Additionally, the UAE state-owned investment firm MGX, chaired by Sheikh Tahnoun, purchased $2 billion worth of USD1 stablecoins from World Liberty Financial.

What followed was a staggering geopolitical payoff. A few months after Sheikh Tahnoun’s investors bought into World Liberty Financial, the Trump administration approved a plan allowing one of Tahnoun’s companies to acquire advanced semiconductors—technology that U.S. officials had previously restricted due to national security concerns. Investing in Don Jr.’s business enterprises could be seen by Tahnoun and other potential foreign investors as a direct means to buy goodwill from the U.S. government.

Government Contracts: Venture Capital Meets the Pentagon

Don Jr. is a Partner at 1789 Capital, an investment and venture firm. In February 2025, Don Jr. told the Financial Times that he was “very involved” in the strategic decisions regarding where 1789 Capital invests its resources.

Since his involvement began, 1789 Capital’s portfolio has seen a remarkable winning streak with the U.S. government. Three months after 1789 Capital invested in Vulcan Elements, a little-known rare-earths start-up with 30 employees, Vulcan received a $620 million loan from the Department of Defense in November 2025. This loan was the largest ever made by the Pentagon’s Office of Strategic Capital.

Other companies in the 1789 Capital portfolio have also won massive federal contracts, including Firehawk Aerospace (more than $10 million from the Air Force), PsiQuantum (more than $10 million from the Air Force), and Cerebras Systems (a $45 million deal with the DoD). 1789 also has invested in larger contractors like Anduril and SpaceX, which secured hundreds of millions in defense and space contracts in 2025.

Furthermore, the U.S. Army contracted Unusual Machines—where Don Jr. holds a $4 million stake and serves as an advisor—to manufacture 3,500 drone motors in October 2025.

Here, again, the concern is not simply that the president’s son is getting rich. The concern is that Don Jr. is using his proximity to the president to enrich himself. If there is a perception that companies in which Don Jr. has invested are more likely to win government contracts, then Don Jr.’s wealth will grow simply because investors will flock to those same companies, eager to buy into what they see as a guaranteed pipeline to federal funds. This influx of capital inevitably drives up the valuation of Don Jr.’s portfolio, meaning he profits handsomely, not from standard business acumen, but from the immense marketability of his access to the Oval Office.

Real Estate Deals: The “Guardrails” Are Gone

During the first Trump presidency, the Trump Organization pledged to halt new foreign deals to avoid conflicts of interest. In Trump 2.0, that pledge has been abandoned. As an Executive Vice President of the Trump Organization, Don Jr. oversees a conglomerate with current plans for 32 Trump-branded projects in 16 foreign countries.

The Trump Organization has partnered with Dar Global, an international subsidiary of a Saudi Arabian company, to develop properties in Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and the Maldives. In Vietnam, government officials accelerated approvals for a Trump project while simultaneously negotiating to reduce the 46% tariff rate on Vietnamese goods imported to the U.S. set by the Trump administration. The Prime Minister of Vietnam, Pham Minh Chinh, explicitly stated that the project would “receive maximum support” to “further strengthen the relationship between Vietnam and the U.S.”

This kind of dealmaking fits the pattern we’ve described above: foreign investors—and in some cases foreign governments—act as if their dealings with Don Jr.’s businesses could influence their country’s relationships with the U.S. government. This is a dangerous path. When countries believe the fastest way to secure favorable trade terms or acquire advanced technology is to greenlight a Trump-branded resort (or invest in a Trump-backed crypto venture), American foreign policy is effectively put up for sale. It leaves the public wondering if decisions made in the White House are based on what is best for America’s national interest or the family’s portfolio.

Twenty years ago, in an interview with the New York Times, Don Jr. offered a rare moment of candor. He said that he had always avoided publicity, “because otherwise, I’m just Donald Trump’s son, some little rich kid running around.” But something changed when Don Jr. started working for his father:

“I realized that there’s an end goal, that I can use some of this. It would be like having an advantage and not taking advantage of it. That’s called stupid.”

In Trump’s first term, the Trump Organization’s business activities and foreign deals were paused. In the second term, it looks like Don Jr. has decided that a similar pause would be “stupid.” Don Jr. has transformed his proximity to the Oval Office into a business, seemingly finding ways to monetize defense contracts, foreign policy, and domestic regulation for his personal benefit.

The result leaves Americans wondering if the government is prioritizing the Trump family’s financial interests over the American people’s best interests.

Home of the Brave is an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness.