Obama's Wealth Grew From Book Royalties, Bush Jr.'s From Sports-Team Stake and Trump's $4 Billion Windfall From Deals Made in Office: Steve Rattner

Wall Street financier Steve Rattner highlighted on Monday that most of President Donald Trump’s personal wealth stemmed from activities or deals made during his time in office.

Trump Leads In Making Money While President

The Morning Joe analyst posted a bar chart on X, showing the percentage change in net worth over the first two years in office for four presidents—George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Trump.

Trump saw the largest gain in net worth, rising 183% — far ahead of everyone else. Biden’s wealth, in comparison, grew by only 5% in the first two years.

But there’s more to it.

‘Unprecedented In Scale’

The vast majority of Trump’s new wealth came from new sources during the presidency, including deals linked to World Liberty Financial and its associated stablecoin, USD1, Official Trump (CRYPTO: TRUMP) memecoin and licensing deals.

In contrast, none of the other three presidents earned any income from deals made after taking office.

Rattner termed Trump’s presidential windfall as “unprecedented in scale & source.” He added that Obama’s 47% wealth gain was from pre-office book royalties, while Bush’s 35% increase was from a sports‑team stake from over a decade prior.

The Crypto Riches

According to financial disclosure released last month, Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures netted him roughly $1.4 billion in 2025, the very first year of his presidency.

Forbes now estimates Trump’s net worth to be $6.4 billion, a significant leap from $2.3 billion in 2024.

On-chain analysis revealed that nearly one million investors who bought the TRUMP meme coin collectively lost $3.81 billion. All this while Trump collected more than $635 million in royalties from the project.

Trump has defended his cryptocurrency income, asserting there was nothing "illegal" or "wrong" about it.

 A White House spokesperson rejected any allegations of conflicts of interest, stating that all of the President’s assets are held in "fully discretionary accounts" managed by “independent” third-party financial institutions.

Image via Shutterstock/ Robert V Schwemmer