Appeals Court Slams Trump’s Total Lawlessness on Abrego Garcia

But Trump’s position as a shareholder of TMTG presents a clear conflict of interest, considering the amount of power he has to roil the stock market. Since entering office, Trump has demonstrated the ability to manipulate the value of any particular stock by simply announcing a tariff or exemption, putting him in a particular position of power over his yields from TMTG.

Trump profits directly from TMTG in two key ways, Legum explained in his newsletter Public Notice. “First, TMTG will invest a portion of its cash reserves in accounts. Secondly, as the majority shareholder in TMTG, Trump will benefit from the fees generated by these accounts. The performance of the underlying assets held in these accounts will determine both TMTG’s return on its cash reserves and interest from outside investors,” he wrote.

Through TMTG’s actively managed investment accounts, Trump would be able to directly financially benefit simply by announcing or rescinding a policy. For example, Apple stock sank when Trump announced his sweeping “reciprocal tariff” policy on April 2 and continued to drop as he escalated tariffs on Chinese goods to the triple digits. But when the administration announced that there would be an exemption applied to electronic devices on April 11, Apple stock began to improve.