Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News. On Tuesday, November fifth,
Speaker 1: the day of the US election, Trump Media and Technology Group,
Speaker 1: the parent company of President elect Donald Trump's social media
Speaker 1: platform Truth Social, reported earnings for the third quarter between
Speaker 1: July one and September thirtieth. Its total revenue was just
Speaker 1: one million dollars, and it lost nearly twenty times that amount.
Speaker 2: Only bringing in that much revenue during a quarter in
Speaker 2: the middle of election season at a social media network
Speaker 2: that you would think would be able to bring in
Speaker 2: revenue from political advertising is not good.
Speaker 1: Tom Maloney covers wealth at Bloomberg, and he says that
Speaker 1: given the Trump Media and Technology Group's performance, what happened
Speaker 1: on the day after the election was pretty remarkable.
Speaker 2: It was worth more than three billion before he was elected.
Speaker 2: On the night of the election, when it became clear
Speaker 2: that Trump was going to win, the stock was up
Speaker 2: more than sixty percent, and that added about two billion
Speaker 2: two He's net worth.
Speaker 1: Since then, the company's stock price did another one to
Speaker 1: eighty and fell back to about where it was before
Speaker 1: the election. It was a whiplash moment that highlighted a
Speaker 1: new reality. As the US prepares for Trump's second term,
Speaker 1: in the White House. The President elects many businesses now
Speaker 1: stand to benefit from his return to power, but just
Speaker 1: how much. I'm David Gura and this is the big
Speaker 1: take from Bloomberg News Today. On the show, we go
Speaker 1: inside the businesses of Trump, from his meme stop to
Speaker 1: crypto to real estate. How the president elect could cash
Speaker 1: in on his second term in office. Bloomberg's Tom Maloney
Speaker 1: spends a lot of time figuring out how rich billionaires
Speaker 1: actually are.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's relatively easy. If somebody you know is a
Speaker 2: founder of a publicly traded company, we know how many
Speaker 2: shares they own, we know what they do with them,
Speaker 2: we know the dividends they collect. Other times, they might
Speaker 2: have a private company and they don't want to share anything,
Speaker 2: and it's very tricky. So we look at, you know,
Speaker 2: how many widgets they sell a year, and try to
Speaker 2: figure out what their revenue might be. We talk to
Speaker 2: people in the industry, we talk to people around them,
Speaker 2: and we try to get data that way and figure
Speaker 2: out what that company might be worth.
Speaker 1: And Tom says, something that sets Donald Trump apart from
Speaker 1: the other billionaires he covers is how much of Trump's
Speaker 1: wealth is tied to his own image.
Speaker 2: That's been the case for a long time. You know.
Speaker 2: Trump has always been somebody who's been very I guess
Speaker 2: cognizant of his personal brand and talked about the importance
Speaker 2: of his personal brand and how it related to his businesses.
Speaker 2: You know, you had things like the casinos, you had
Speaker 2: an airline, stuff like that, where he was trying to
Speaker 2: leverage the value of his name to build out these businesses,
Speaker 2: even going back to the night eighties and a lot
Speaker 2: of the time that didn't turn out very successfully. And
Speaker 2: he did that again after he's kind of renewed popularity
Speaker 2: with The Apprentice, with things like Trump Fodguer and Trump's
Speaker 2: Stakes and Trump University.
Speaker 1: The Trump Media and Technology Group is an extension of
Speaker 1: that strategy. The stock he owns of that company represents
Speaker 1: the biggest asset in his portfolio. He owns just over
Speaker 1: half its shares, and despite the company's losses and it
Speaker 1: having revenue of only a million dollars in the last quarter,
Speaker 1: it has a market cap of about six billion dollars
Speaker 1: because of how much the company's stock fluctuates. Though Tom
Speaker 1: says it's hard to say how much wealthier it'll make Trump.
Speaker 2: It's not really clear that even with Trump in the
Speaker 2: White House, it's going to be any more successful. So
Speaker 2: it's kind of remains to be seen.
Speaker 1: This is paper wealth. I mean, can he sell the stock?
Speaker 1: Is it something he's talked about transferring that that stock
Speaker 1: into cash.
Speaker 2: He can sell it at this point, there was a
Speaker 2: long lock up period that's expired, so he can sell.
Speaker 2: He said he has no intention of doing that. And obviously,
Speaker 2: if you own that much of the stock and you
Speaker 2: start to sell, that's going to spook people and the
Speaker 2: price would presumably go down. So could he sell all
Speaker 2: of that overnight? No, probably not, but he could sell it.
Speaker 2: But you're right, it is kind of paperwork like it
Speaker 2: changes from day to day. It's an extremely volatile stock.
Speaker 1: So let's move from the media property to crypto, which
Speaker 1: is another piece of Donald Trump's portfolio, something he's embraced
Speaker 1: after criticizing his promised to help the crypto industry. And
Speaker 1: Trump has a crypto project of his own. Where does
Speaker 1: that venture stand and how could Trump see his wealth
Speaker 1: increase by the actions he's expected to take when it
Speaker 1: comes to crypto.
Speaker 2: Sure, so there are kind of two strands to the
Speaker 2: crypto thing for Trump. There are the NFTs, which are
Speaker 2: these kind of digital trading cards that he's been selling.
Speaker 1: These are kind of like comic book style digital images
Speaker 1: of the president.
Speaker 2: Am I right, Yeah, that's right. It's like Trump in
Speaker 2: various costumes, different poses. You know, he might have laser eyes,
Speaker 2: or he might be wearing you know, camo or carrying
Speaker 2: a gun, just various kind of almost comic book trading
Speaker 2: card type things that people out thereby.
Speaker 1: In his most recent ethics disclosure, Trump says he's made
Speaker 1: more than seven million dollars selling his NFTs, and Tom
Speaker 1: says Trump's win makes them even more valuable.
Speaker 2: If he'd lost, you'd have to think that those NFTs
Speaker 2: were not going to be worth anything and he was
Speaker 2: going to have more difficulties selling them in the future
Speaker 2: because he was kind of this he would be basically
Speaker 2: a two time loser, and I think he would have
Speaker 2: put a cloud over that business now that he's one, though,
Speaker 2: there's there's there's some future in it.
Speaker 1: I think NFTs aren't the only digital asset Trump is
Speaker 1: involved with. He's also gotten into cryptocurrencies.
Speaker 2: They haven't built a kind of operational business yet. He's
Speaker 2: really become a friend of crypto, the crypto industry, was
Speaker 2: a big backer of Trump in this election, a very
Speaker 2: vocal supporter. He's spoke at crypto conferences, and a lot
Speaker 2: of crypto backers, people like the Winklevoss Twins, were supportive
Speaker 2: of Trump because he pledged to do things like get
Speaker 2: rid of Garry Gensler, the SEC head who was viewed
Speaker 2: as hostile to crypto, So that really they were an
Speaker 2: important part of the kind of coalition that got him elected,
Speaker 2: of the tech industry's support for Trump, and that could
Speaker 2: be an important part of his worth going forward.
Speaker 1: Tom says he and his colleagues have concluded that Trump's
Speaker 1: NFTs and crypto ventures are too difficult to value, so
Speaker 1: they're not part of his five point seven billion dollar
Speaker 1: net worth as calculated by Bloomberg. It's easier comparatively to
Speaker 1: put a number on Trump's real estate holdings.
Speaker 2: So there are kind of two in particular that I
Speaker 2: think are really interesting to watch. One is forty Wall Street,
Speaker 2: which is this nineteen twenties Art Deco building downtown. It's
Speaker 2: quite a beautiful building.
Speaker 1: Right by the Stock Exchange.
Speaker 2: Right by the Stock Exchange. It's lost a lot of tenants,
Speaker 2: especially over the last couple of years. It's not making
Speaker 2: enough money to cover its interest payments. It's only making
Speaker 2: about sixty percent of what it needs to cover its
Speaker 2: interest payments, So it's a money loser right now.
Speaker 1: Trump doesn't own forty Wall Street outright. He has a
Speaker 1: ground lease on the property. And Tom says what Trump
Speaker 1: pays for that is about to change.
Speaker 2: And that rent is going to go up really substantially
Speaker 2: in twenty thirty two, which you know, it's not making
Speaker 2: money now, it's going to make even less money than
Speaker 2: at least by the terms of that ground lease contract.
Speaker 2: So at some point I think that contract is going
Speaker 2: to need to be negotiated.
Speaker 1: And Tom says winning the twenty twenty four presidential election
Speaker 1: is likely to give Trump more bargaining power.
Speaker 2: The last thing I think another party is going to
Speaker 2: want is to be in some sort of public dispute
Speaker 2: with the president of the United States or litigation with
Speaker 2: the president of the United States. You know you're going
Speaker 2: to be trying to work out a solution.
Speaker 1: And then, of course there's Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Speaker 2: That building also has issues. It's got the commercial area downstairs.
Speaker 2: They don't have a lot of high profile tenants there anymore.
Speaker 2: It's not doing great the one they do have left
Speaker 2: is Gucci.
Speaker 1: Gucci Trump Tower's most important retail tenant, renegotiated its lease
Speaker 1: to lock in a lower rent during the pandemic, but
Speaker 1: there could be issues there too. Tom says there have
Speaker 1: been signs the company has been looking to relocate when
Speaker 1: we come back. How Trump's growing list of liabilities, from
Speaker 1: conflicts of interest to his legal cases could affect his
Speaker 1: businesses and his bank account. Bloomberg's Tom Maloney says that
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump left office in twenty twenty one, he
Speaker 1: used a different playbook than his predecessors.
Speaker 2: Past presidents have benefited from these corporate ties, from this
Speaker 2: network that they build during the presidency, maybe by becoming
Speaker 2: a director at a company, or you know, getting donations
Speaker 2: to their charitable foundation or something like that, which is
Speaker 2: on a completely different scale from what we're talking about
Speaker 2: with Trump, who has, you know, real substantial businesses, isn't
Speaker 2: afraid to go out there and enter into agreements that
Speaker 2: might be seen as conflicts of interest. That is, obviously,
Speaker 2: I think something that Trump isn't very concerned about. He's
Speaker 2: comfortable with the kind of political ramifications of those sort
Speaker 2: of deals, and it's a way that he can you
Speaker 2: know if he sees it as a way to make
Speaker 2: money to benefit his businesses. I don't think that he's
Speaker 2: going to generally walk away from those kind of transactions.
Speaker 1: Sticking with the uniqueness of Donald Trump, we've seen presidents
Speaker 1: in the past take steps to protect themselves from potential
Speaker 1: conflicts of interest while they've been in office, to protect
Speaker 1: themselves from the appearance of conflicts of interest when they've
Speaker 1: been in office. Remind us what Donald Trump put in
Speaker 1: place back in twenty seventeen to do that, and what
Speaker 1: do you think the likelihood is that those structures are
Speaker 1: going to be in place this time around when he
Speaker 1: starts his second term.
Speaker 2: So the first time around, Trump put his assets into
Speaker 2: a trust, he still obviously attracted a lot of criticism
Speaker 2: about various parts of his business, getting a lot of
Speaker 2: money from foreign sources and so on. This time around,
Speaker 2: Eric Trump has suggested they won't go to the same extent,
Speaker 2: but there is really no clarity about exactly what steps
Speaker 2: they're going to take to mitigate these conflicts of interest
Speaker 2: this time around. So it's certainly something that people are
Speaker 2: going to be watching and looking at, especially with things
Speaker 2: like Trump media and technology. It's a publicly traded company.
Speaker 2: So you know, people have suggested that if groups wanted
Speaker 2: to win favor with Trump, they could simply invest in
Speaker 2: this company and boost the value of the stock and
Speaker 2: that boost Trump's personal fortune. We're just gonna have to
Speaker 2: wait and see what happens there. There has been discussion
Speaker 2: about maybe it merging with Twitter with x, which is
Speaker 2: owned by Elon Musk. They haven't really commented on that,
Speaker 2: but that's you know, one of the theories is that
Speaker 2: maybe Musk is going to buy truth Social and that's
Speaker 2: why it should be considered valuable, but there's no real
Speaker 2: evidence that that's going there occur.
Speaker 1: We've talked about one side of the balance sheet a lot.
Speaker 1: Those are the assets that he has and where he's
Speaker 1: making money. Where is he that what's weighing on that
Speaker 1: balance sheet, what's weighing on him financially certainly.
Speaker 2: So you know, look, he's big liabilities at this point
Speaker 2: are the legal settlements. So he has hundreds of millions
Speaker 2: of dollars due in the defamation case with Nie Gene
Speaker 2: Carroll and also with the New York fraud case. Both
Speaker 2: of those settlements being held up on appeals and so on.
Speaker 2: So he hasn't had to pay that money out yet.
Speaker 2: He's had to pay a bond, but not all of
Speaker 2: that money has been paid at this point. Now, coming
Speaker 2: into presidency, he's probably got the ability to string that
Speaker 2: out a bit longer, So it's positive for him on
Speaker 2: the liability side as well.
Speaker 1: Where do you see this story going from here? What
Speaker 1: are you going to be watching for next.
Speaker 2: We're certainly going to be watching how he deals with
Speaker 2: these conflicts of interest going up to his inauguration, what
Speaker 2: steps he's going to take to mitigate them, whether he's
Speaker 2: going to do anything with Trump Media and Technology. You know,
Speaker 2: he has a big stake in the company. Is he
Speaker 2: going to try to hold on to that? Is he
Speaker 2: going to put it into some sort of trust, give
Speaker 2: control to somebody else? And I think what's really interesting
Speaker 2: is coming into this administration, you're probably going to have
Speaker 2: the richest cabinet that you've ever seen. Looking at some
Speaker 2: names that have been bandied around cabinet members and executive appointments,
Speaker 2: people like Elon Musk, the richest person in the world,
Speaker 2: Howard Lutnick, John Paulson, etc. So it's going to be
Speaker 2: really fascinating to see how they attempt to manage these
Speaker 2: conflicts of interests, what steps they take to you know,
Speaker 2: get out of their businesses at all, if they do any,
Speaker 2: and the tax implications of that as well.
Speaker 1: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by David Fox and Julia Press.
Speaker 1: It was edited by Aaron Edwards, Caitlin Kenny, and Brian Chapatta.
Speaker 1: It was mixed by Alex Sagura and fact checked by
Speaker 1: Adrian A. Tapia. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven. Our
Speaker 1: senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole Beemster.
Speaker 1: Bor Sage Bowman is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. If you
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Speaker 1: next week.