Donald Trump has invested tens of millions of dollars in the purchase of shares (and bonds) of major American companies in the first quarter of the year, before these experienced spectacular rises in the markets following political decisions, thus fueling controversies about a presumed conflict of interest of the White House occupant.
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Unlike his predecessors, Trump did not divest or transfer his assets to a blind trust overseen by an independent manager. His vast business empire is managed by two of his sons. However, independent financial managers buy and sell assets on his behalf, and Trump assures that neither he nor his family have a say in the selection of the securities.
The top executives of the two companies were part of this week’s presidential mission to China
The transactions, detailed this Friday in documents submitted to the United States Office of Government Ethics, span more than 100 pages. In the first quarter, the president bought up to 5 million dollars in each of companies such as Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing, and Costco, according to the published documents.
Fixed income
The dangerous escalation of U.S. debt
Yields on U.S. Treasury bonds are climbing to levels considered risky. The 30-year debt has already reached 5.1%, a level similar to that reached during April 2025, when Donald Trump was forced to partially backtrack on the Liberation Day tariffs.
The most debatable cases refer to Nvidia and Boeing. Their top executives are part of the U.S. delegation of business leaders who accompanied Trump this week on his trip to China
Trump acquired up to one million dollars of shares of Jensen Huang’s firm on January 6. Just one week before the Department of Commerce approved the sale of chips from this North American giant to China, which allowed the price of these securities to increase in the following days.
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Since then, the chip giant’s shares have soared. Its market capitalization surpassed 5.5 trillion in recent hours. No company in Wall Street history has ever been worth so much money. If it were the GDP of a country, Nvidia would be the third largest economy in the world after the two superpowers, the United States and China. And, if we look at the ranking by asset value in the world, the company led by Jensen Huang has already surpassed the value of all the silver metal on the planet, ranking only behind gold. The company’s stock rise has been spectacular this past week, gaining nearly 900 billion dollars in market capitalization in just seven sessions, that is, as if it had added to its price during this brief period the wealth produced in an entire year in the Netherlands.
It is true that this Friday there was a significant drop in Nvidia’s shares, with a decline close to 3% in the mid-afternoon after Donald Trump revealed that China will not buy the firm’s H200 chips, despite having the green light for their sale abroad, because, according to him, the Chinese prefer to develop their own technology.
As for Boeing, after the meeting with Xi Jinping it has emerged that China has ordered the North American aerospace company to purchase 200 large aircraft. In the last year, the company’s shares have appreciated more than 8%.
Also very controversial is the magnate’s stake in Intel, knowing that his administration closed an agreement in August to take a 10% state stake for nearly 9 billion dollars.
The president also made investments in Netflix, Paramount, and Warner Bros, which were involved this year in a long shareholder battle in which Trump expressed his support for Paramount, the group that ultimately managed to take over Warner.
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