Although President Donald Trump has insisted that he is a friend of the working class and famously told a 2016 audience, “I love the poorly educated,” he is also obsessed with status and brags about his net worth. But financial writer Adam Davidson, in a Twitter thread, stresses that the president greatly exaggerates how wealthy he is and uses some figures to make his case.
Davidson, author of the book “The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the 21st Century,” tweets, “Hot take: Trump is demonstrably far poorer than he claims. Again: Scotland holds the key.” Davidson goes on to explain why Trump’s business interests in the U.K. offer some insights on his true net worth. According to Davidson, Trump’s “audited UK financials show money-losing properties with arbitrarily inflated values with no tie to actual market conditions. Those are his ONLY audited financials.”
Davidson goes into specifics, writing, “So, three businesses that lose around 5 million pounds a year and have a collective value of, say, 70M pounds (being generous) are claimed to bring in 150 million pounds a year! And, again, those are his MOST trustworthy numbers.”
Davidson estimates that Trump now has about $50 million less than the amount he inherited from his father, the late Fred Trump, Sr.
“My best guess: he got around $200M from dad and now has $150M or so, because he’s bad at money and takes bad risks,” Davidson writes.
According to Davidson, “There are huge error bars around every number related to Trump. We have no idea how much his businesses make, how many assets he owns, and how much debt he has. There is a good chance he, himself, has no idea. Because he has a small and inept finance team.”
Davidson notes, however, that Trump’s hardcore supporters don’t become any less supportive when he argues that the president isn’t as wealthy as he claims to be.
“When I’ve tried this logic on Trump supporters,” Davidson tweets, “it doesn’t work of course. They are then even MORE impressed with his hustle. A broke guy has a big plane? Cool!”