(May 15): US President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosures show that he made a slew of stock and bond purchases with major American companies in the first quarter of the year totalling in the tens of millions of dollars and possibly more.
The transactions, spelled out in documents filed with the US Office of Government Ethics that encompass more than 100 pages, list purchases and sales in broad ranges. In the first quarter, the president bought as much as US$5 million ($6.4 million) each in companies including Nvidia Corp, Oracle Corp, Microsoft Corp, Boeing Co and Costco Wholesale Corp, according to the documents posted on Thursday.
It is not clear how many of the transactions involve equities. Unlike reports that members of Congress file, Trump does not have to specify the classes of the asset he is trading.
The president has made a number of policy moves that intersect with publicly traded companies including Nvidia, whose chips, critical to artificial intelligence development, require US government approval for foreign sales. Executives from Nvidia and Boeing are part of a US delegation of business leaders who have accompanied Trump on a trip this week to China.
Six of Trump’s trades involved Intel Corp; his administration hammered out an agreement to take a 10% stake for nearly US$9 billion in the iconic chipmaker in August.
Netflix Inc and Paramount Skydance Corp battled to acquire Warner Bros Discovery Inc in a months-long fight with both suitors raising potential antitrust concerns. Trump made investments related to all three companies. He bought a modest stake in Warner Bros in March, worth at least US$30,000, a stake in Paramount Skydance worth at least US$15,000 the same month and had 19 transactions naming Netflix, including sales worth as little as US$1,000 and as much as US$5 million during the first quarter.
See also: S&P 500 tops 7,500 as AI fuels record-breaking run
The White House has said on previous occasions that neither Trump nor his family members are making investment decisions for him. Independent financial managers bought and sold assets for him using programmes that replicate recognised indices when making investments, it has said. The White House referred questions about the latest disclosure to the Trump Organization, which did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment sent after regular business hours.
The biggest sales came on Feb 10, when Trump unloaded holdings in three technology firms: Microsoft, Meta Platforms Inc and Amazon.com Inc, in amounts between US$5 million and US$25 million. He also sold a stake in a Vanguard exchange-traded fund in January worth at least US$5 million.
Unlike his predecessors, Trump did not divest or move his assets into a blind trust with an independent overseer. His sprawling business empire is managed by two of his sons and operates in several areas that intersect with presidential policy.
Uploaded by Tham Yek Lee
