Donald Trump ended 2022 on a high note: His business was found guilty of fraud, the Jan. 6 committee awarded him a criminal referral, he was caught dining with anti-Semites, his NFTs were mocked even by his base, and his tax returns were finally, after years, made public. (He’s also allegedly running for president, though you might not know that.) People are still sifting through the latter, though one tidbit jumped out: He’s such a brilliant businessman that he lost out on millions in tech stock.
As per Newsweek, the former president’s 2017 tax returns reveal that he and his wife, Melania, sold stock in six separate companies, among them Apple and Microsoft. They bought both stocks in 2013. For Apple, they paid $481,505. They sold that stock four years later for $833,118, making a cool $351,613. With Microsoft, they paid $248,867 and sold it, also four years later, for $464,558, meaning they made a profit of $215,691. Combined, that’s over half a million clams. And that’s just two of the companies in which he invested.
However, according to Newsweek, had the Trumps held out and sold today, they would have made far, far more:
An investment of $481,500 in Apple stock in 2013 would now be worth $4,150,000, making a total profit of $3,669,000. If Trump had held his Microsoft shares, they would now be worth just under $2 million.
Lord knows Trump could use the scratch these days. On top of his so-far non-starter of a third presidential campaign, which not even his former employees are supporting, he’s got economic and legal woes out the wazoo. No wonder he went all-in on NFTs, which made him some dough but not as much as he’d have had he waited another five years or so to sell his tech stock.
(Via Newsweek)