President Donald Trump insists he is unaware of the happenings at his family’s crypto businesses, despite these companies netting the president more than $1 billion last year, according to financial disclosures.
“I could know about it,” Trump told CNBC on Thursday. “I didn’t. There’s nothing illegal. There’s nothing wrong with it.”
“I don’t do anything having to do with my business,” Trump added of his assets, which he says are held in a trust managed by his children and independent financial institutions.
Of his money managers, the Republican claimed in the CNBC interview that he didn’t even “know who they are.”
Critics have accused the president of influence trading via his family’s crypto operations, which he and the Trump Organization deny.
Shortly before taking office, the Trump family reportedly secretly sold a $500 million stake in one of its crypto businesses to an Abu Dhabi royal, one of whose firms later used a Trump crypto coin to make a separate $2 billion deal. The royal was also involved in negotiations with the Trump administration to secure access to high-powered AI chips for the UAE.
In October, the president pardoned Binance founder Changpeng Zhao, who has worked with the Trump family’s crypto operations.
Trump was once a crypto skeptic, but he wooed the industry during the 2024 campaign, and crypto companies were among his most influential and generous donors.
The president has delivered in office on priorities for the industry, including scaling back crypto prosecutions, weakening the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and calling for a national Bitcoin stockpile.
The price of bitcoin briefly hit an all-time high in late 2025, further boosting the president’s supporters in the industry.
Outside of crypto, President Trump is facing scrutiny for the massive financial payday he has earned since returning to office, which has little precedent in U.S. history.
In his filings, Trump disclosed a flurry of financial transactions totaling at least $220 million in the securities of major U.S. companies, according to two new financial disclosure forms released by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Meanwhile, in 2025, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, which also serves as his primary residence, earned him nearly $77.5 million, more than 50 percent more than in 2024.
The estate, which is sometimes called the “Winter White House,” has emerged as a key venue for getting access to the president. Donors and Silicon Valley executives have flocked to Palm Beach to court the president there, and Trump has regularly visited the property and held high-dollar fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago since taking office.
Fundraising events at the Florida club have reached $1 million per plate.
Shortly before Trump was reelected in 2024, Mar-a-Lago raised its initiation fee from $700,000 to $1 million. (The club hiked fees around the time of Trump’s first election, too.)
