Financial disclosures reported on Saturday that the U.S. President Donald Trump purchased at least $82 million in corporate and municipal bonds during the late months of August to the beginning of October, including new investments in sectors that were favored by his policies.
The forms released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics indicated that Trump conducted more than 175 financial transactions from August 28 to October 2.
The disclosures, prepared under a 1978 transparency law known as the Ethics in Government Act, do not include specific amounts of each purchase, but present a broad range. According to the filings, the overall total value of the bond purchases was more than $337 million.
The majority of the assets reported in the disclosures on Saturday are bonds issued by municipalities, states, counties, school districts, and other participants who have connections with public agencies.
The new bond investments Trump is cutting across several industries, some of which have already seen the benefits, or are benefiting, of his administration’s changes in policies like financial deregulation.
Some of the corporate bonds purchased by Trump include the offerings of chipmakers like Broadcom and Qualcomm; tech companies like Meta Platforms; retailers like Home Depot and CVS Health; and Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley.
Meanwhile, the JPMorgan bonds were also purchased in late August as the debt of investment banks.
Trump requested the U.S. Justice Department to look into JPMorgan regarding its connection with the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein on Friday.
The bank has expressed regret that it had any relationship with Epstein in the past, and it did not assist him in perpetrating “heinous acts.” Trump also purchased Intel bonds when the U.S. government, under the leadership of Trump, took a stake in the company.
The White House did not promptly release a statement in response to a request on Saturday. The administration has indicated in the past that Trump has submitted regular disclosures of his investments, but has never been involved in managing the portfolio but rather, the management is left to a third-party financial institution.
Trump, who made his fortune in the real estate industry before entering politics, has previously said that he had put his companies in a trust managed by his children.
A disclosure filed in August stated that Trump had acquired more than $100 million in bonds before returning to the presidency on January 20.
Trump also filed his annual disclosure form in June, which showed that all the proceeds of his various business ventures go back to him, escalating concerns of potential conflicts of interest.
However, in that annual disclosure, which was meant to address the 2024 calendar year, Trump reported over $600 million in cryptocurrency income, golf property, licensing, and other ventures.
Thus, it has also been reported that Trump had pushed into crypto, and this had contributed significantly to his wealth.
As per Reuters’ calculation at the time, in general, the president disclosed a minimum of $1.6 billion worth of assets in June.
