Donald Trump’s businesses are as volatile as ever, but he is on firmer financial footing than he has been in recent years.
Compared with 2020, however, victory or defeat in this year’s election will have more significant implications for the former president’s wealth, as well as his legal situation.
The biggest difference for Trump this time, is his roughly $4 billion stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates Truth Social, his money-losing social-media platform. The staggering sum is ephemeral, driven up by enthusiastic traders, and could be vaporized if he loses in November.
Trump hasn’t tapped his stake in the company, which he could have used to fund his campaign. Truth Social’s shares have soared recently in a bet that he will win the election. “If he loses, I think this thing goes to zero,” said Matthew Tuttle, chief executive of Tuttle Capital Management, who has invested in Trump Media for his own account.
Thanks to the value of Truth Social, the improved performance of the Trump Organization’s string of golf properties and its strong cash position, Trump’s net worth is the highest it has been in years. The Wall Street Journal estimates it at between $7.5 billion and $10 billion, including debt, more than double what it was in 2020 and 2016.
Trump’s big gains in the stock market have more than offset losses in the value of his real-estate holdings. The total value of his largest three office assets, not including debt, have declined from about $1.2 billion in 2016 to about $750 million today, according to a Journal analysis.
The properties have been hit by one of the worst U.S. office downturns in decades. One of Trump’s trophy office assets, the 63-story tower at 40 Wall St., across the street from the New York Stock Exchange, has fallen in value from $260 million in 2016 to about $140 million today, not including debt, according to the Journal’s analysis. The Trump Organization might not be able to repay the $105 million mortgage on the building when it comes due in July, according to analysts.
Trump Organization executives have denied that 40 Wall is in financial peril, pointing out its residential-conversion opportunities. They also have said the company has more than enough cash on its balance sheet to pay off the debt.
The Trump Organization should be able to weather the real-estate downturn because it has been paying off debt, selling assets and hoarding cash. It shelved numerous expansion plans—particularly condominium, hotel and resort projects in overseas markets—after Trump was elected president in 2016.
“We purposely didn’t do very many deals,” Trump said in a deposition last year for the New York attorney general’s lawsuit. “I didn’t want to have conflicts of interest…I thought it wouldn’t look good.”
Trump’s son Eric largely has been running the business since Trump was elected in 2016. He has made the company more conservative than it has been in the past, although foreign- licensing deals of real-estate developments have picked up since his father left the White House.
It is sitting on almost $500 million in cash, Donald Trump said earlier this year, far more than in previous years. The money comes partly from the sale of the Trump International Hotel in Washington, a refinancing of two office buildings in which Trump holds stakes and the sale of the company’s Trump Ferry Point Golf Links in New York City.
The cash might be needed to handle Trump’s legal issues. He is facing criminal charges, including for election interference in Georgia and related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He also was convicted in a state court in May for falsifying records to cover up hush money paid to a porn star.
The Trump Organization also faces a $489 million penalty in a civil-fraud case in New York, and Trump was ordered earlier this year by a federal jury to pay more than $83 million in damages for defaming writer E. Jean Carroll.
Trump has denied these allegations, and both of the expensive civil judgments are being appealed. Last month, a New York appeals court questioned whether the state’s civil fraud case against Trump properly applied the law—and whether the nearly half-a-billion-dollar penalty against him was too high. If Trump loses the election, he will likely face the prosecutions he has been able to delay until after the election.
A bright spot for Trump is his more than one dozen golf courses and golf resorts, which generate more than $400 million in annual sales. Total annual revenue for the Trump Organization was at least $730 million, according to the financial disclosure he filed in August. Golf had been declining in popularity, but the pandemic gave it a boost. Trump’s courses have been helped by its deals to host tournaments sponsored by Saudi Arabia-backed LIV Golf at his courses in New Jersey, Florida and Virginia.
The Trump Organization weathered the fallout from the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by a pro-Trump mob better than expected. After that, several banks cut him off. The PGA canceled plans to hold the PGA Championship at a Trump course, and the refinancing of two buildings in which Trump held stakes was put on hold.
Deutsche Bank, one of the few leading financial institutions willing to do business with Trump, said it was unlikely to lend Trump more money, and now-defunct Signature Bank said it would close Trump’s accounts. “We witnessed the president of the United States encouraging the rioters and refraining from calling in the National Guard to protect the Congress in its performance of duty,” Signature said.
Win or lose, Trump’s company will probably survive. Given that he is 78 years old, the day-to-day management of the business might remain with Eric Trump. A big question will be whether it has money to grow, or whether much of it is eaten up by legal judgments and lawyer’s fees.
Eric Trump is hoping to continue developing his family’s domestic properties, such as Trump National Doral—the golf resort near Miami—and expand the Trump brand in places such as Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Some of the company’s overseas plans might be put on hold if Trump becomes president again, as they were when Trump was in the White House before.
Eric Trump has growth in mind as he eyes the future. “We’re sitting on a war chest of cash the likes of which our company has never seen before,” he said.
Photo illustration source images, clockwise from top: Spencer Platt/Getty Images; Cheney Orr/Bloomberg News; Eduardo Munoz/Reuters; David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News; John Minchillo/Associated Press
Amrith Ramkumar and Jack Gillum contributed to this article.
Write to Peter Grant at peter.grant@wsj.com