section_path: Ethics/Conflicts of interest
section_name: Conflicts of interest
paragraph_text: Conflicts of interest
  
  Trump's second presidency included multiple potential conflicts of interest that did not exist during his first term in office, including a publicly traded company in Truth Social, a cryptocurrency venture, new overseas real estate deals involving state-affiliated entities, and several branding and licensing deals selling Trump-branded merchandise. His 2024 campaign was noted for an "unprecedented" mixing of personal business and political fundraising. Trump promoted $59.99 bibles, $399 sneakers, $99 "Victory47" cologne, and $99 Trump-branded NFT digital trading cards for his personal, non-campaign accounts. Trump's campaign was noted for spending large sums of campaign money at Trump-owned businesses, in particular his Mar-a-Lago resort and the Trump National Doral Miami.
  
  After winning the election, Trump mirrored his first term's ethics commitments and did not divest from his interests in branding and real estate. He also did not place his assets in a trust managed by an independent trustee. Trump did not adopt his own formal ethics guidelines. Trump transferred his shares of Truth Social into a trust in which he is the sole beneficiary, of which his oldest son is the trustee. Ethics experts described it as falling "well short of the blind trusts and divestitures from private business interests that other presidents have used to avoid ethical conflicts with their job". Trump's son, Eric Trump, said the Trump Organization would continue to pursue business deals overseas, dropping a self-imposed prohibition during Trump's first presidency. Trump profited from holding events at his hotels and golf courses. Trump's conflicts of interest were described as having national-security risks, with particular emphasis placed on relationships with the Saudi and Dubai governments through the Trump Organization and his son-in-law Jared Kushner 's investment fund backed by the Saudis. Trump noted that conflict of interest laws did not apply to him and that he was protected by broad immunity for his official actions as president.
  
  Trump repealed ethics rules prohibiting executive branch employees accepting major gifts from lobbyists and two year bans on lobbyists seeking executive jobs and vice versa. Critics described the repeal as the opposite of his pledge to " drain the swamp ". Trump also signed an executive order to stop the Justice Department prosecuting Americans accused of bribing foreign government officials. Trump's wife, Melania, entered into a deal with Amazon to create a documentary about herself, which raised ethics concerns as it was made while she was still in office. In March 2025, Trump praised Tesla's cars on the White House lawn with notes about the cars features alongside Elon Musk in "something of a sales pitch" which was described in The Nation as "brazenly corrupt". Countries facing tariffs were pushed by the State Department to approve Musk's Starlink satellite service.
  
  On April 9, 2025, Trump's encouragement of investors to buy stocks hours before pausing tariffs that sent markets soaring was scrutinized by Democrats and government ethics experts as possible market manipulation. Representative Adam Schiff called on congress to investigate whether in pausing tariffs, Trump had engaged in insider trading or market manipulation.
  
  In May 2025, Trump's intention to accept a $400 million dollar luxury jet from Qatar to first serve as Air Force One and later be transferred to his presidential library elicited rare, bipartisan criticism, with his supporters deriding it as a "bribe", "grift" and "corruption". The Guardian criticized it as an example of a quid pro quo. The Boston Globe described the deal as an example of an increasingly transactional presidency, describing it as more direct than during his first term and showing that he was "willing to bend for anyone who gives him what he craves: praise, prestige, and a cut of the profits".
  
  Trump's cabinet were noted to have a large number of potential conflicts of interest, with the Campaign Legal Center finding over 467 that would require recusal, with the most, 106, belonging to Howard Lutnick. Trump Media gifted 25,946 shares of stock of DJT to each of his picks for FBI director, Kash Patel, and education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon, totaling $779,400 each as of January 31, 2025. Both members served as directors for his company, and they later said they would not accept the award. He also gifted thousands of shares to his son.