Trump’s reported $2.2 billion in 2025 income sets off ethics alarms

Ethics experts sounded alarmed Wednesday after new financial disclosure reports revealed that President Trump’s income rose to $2.2 billion in 2025, with $1.4 billion coming from various cryptocurrency-related startups.

“This is bribery. This is corruption. This is the exploitation of public power for private financial gain,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at the University of Washington and an expert in government ethics. “Trump, with the consent of a sleepy GOP-controlled Congress and the active assistance of John Roberts’ Supreme Court, has turned the presidency into a massive corruption racket.”

Trump reports income of over $600 million in 2024. However, after entering the White House in 2025, his income reportedly rose to over $2.2 billion.

2025 annual disclosure report A report filed with the Office of Government Ethics shows that Trump has increased his real estate business in countries around the world, particularly in the Middle East, at a time when his government is negotiating vital issues such as military aid and economic tariffs. The president also expanded his operations in the relatively new cryptocurrency space.

According to the 927-page report, Trump received $635 million in royalties from Celebration Coins and more than $500 million from crypto company World Liberty Financial. He made millions from a line of Trump-branded products, including God Bless the USA Bibles and sneakers depicting him with a fist. He also earned $10.4 million from a property in the United Arab Emirates and $9 million from a property in Saudi Arabia.

Noah Bookbinder, an ethicist and former president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a nonprofit watchdog group in Washington, called Trump’s business dealings while in the White House “unprecedented in modern history, certainly, but unprecedented in all of American history by most methods of measurement.”

“This is corruption,” Bookbinder said. “You have a president who uses his presidency in a very transparent way that benefits his business interests and in a way that intertwines the presidency and business interests.”

But the president and the White House have brushed aside ethical concerns about Trump’s money.

Trump told reporters on Wednesday that he made a lot of money before coming to the White House, that “big institutions” handled his money, and that he, like every American, benefited as the stock market rose.

“We all make a profit,” he said. “I make a profit because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash.”

White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement: “Neither the President nor his family have ever had, nor will they have, a conflict of interest. … All actions by President Trump and his administration are carried out in the best interest of the American people.”

Although the report does not show exactly how much Trump earned (it details income rather than profits), the size of the president’s cryptocurrency transactions raised long-standing concerns from ethics watchdogs.

Citizens’ Vice President for Responsibility and Ethics Jordan Libowitz said the most alarming detail of the new report was the hundreds of millions of dollars coming from various crypto startups that partnered with companies the American public knows little about.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for corruption when foreign governments and foreign nationals can funnel tens of millions of dollars into the president’s pocket at a time when his own administration is regulating such companies,” Libowitz said.

As a real estate mogul, Trump has long invested in hotels, condominiums and golf courses. But Libowitz said cryptocurrency offers much more potential for corruption.

“There are only so many hotel rooms you can book, there are so many golf rounds you can book, but there are no limits in crypto,” Libowitz said. “You can buy his meme money and he gets a cut, so you kind of cut out the middleman, but also eliminate the cap or the amount of money you can funnel to the president.”

Trump’s expansion of his real estate empire in foreign countries, especially in the Middle East, is also problematic, Libowitz said.

“It now looks like almost all of their new projects are in foreign countries, and that makes it clear that if you’re building this huge facility, you’re going to need help from local government with things like tax breaks or utility issues, road construction or expediting permits,” Libowitz said. “These are ways foreign governments can do the American president a favor.”

A half-century before Trump’s election, presidents from Nixon to Obama publicly released their tax returns, sold property or placed the proceeds in a blind trust managed by someone they didn’t know, ethics experts say.

“They were doing it not because they had to do it legally, but because they thought it was the right thing to do,” Libowitz said.

Since Trump was first elected in 2016, choosing not to sell or blindly trust his businesses, ethics experts have called on Congress to impose more aggressive financial oversight on money in politics.

“Congress needs to update the law and basically mandate blind trusts, sale of assets, and disclosure of tax returns,” Libowitz said.

Noting that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause clearly states that the president cannot accept things of value from foreign or domestic governments, ethics experts say Trump violated the law and Congress chose not to enforce it.

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota and former White House ethics attorney under President George W. Bush, said Congress should close loopholes that exempt presidents from federal conflict of interest laws and enforce the Foreign Emoluments Clause.

“No person in confidence in the United States government may accept emoluments, profits, or benefits from foreign governments, and this is expressly prohibited under the United States Constitution,” Painter said. “Now, if the United Arab Emirates, as I understand it, is putting money into Liberty Financial… and then Trump is making money out of Liberty Financial, that’s a Foreign Emoluments Clause issue.”

He said Congress should authorize an independent prosecutor to investigate such conflicts.

“The problem with the Foreign Charges Clause is how do we enforce it?” said the painter. “The founders and presidents of Congress implemented this by impeaching anyone who received some foreign government money, but I think that system is not working. This is a serious problem.”