On September 20, 2026, The Washington Post published an analysis of Trump's financial disclosures and corporate announcements and concluded that his “sprawling family business empire has become increasingly intertwined with the boom in artificial intelligence, at the same time that he has resisted calls to slow the development of the technology.” The Guardian published a parallel review the same day.
What the documents show about Trump himself: he has not placed his assets in a blind trust, he has continued to buy and sell securities in office (the Post counts “nearly 30,000” transactions since he returned), and his filings list purchases of Dell Technologies, Micron Technology and GE Vernova, companies whose profits are tied to the computing and power build-out behind AI, along with Broadcom, Texas Instruments, Credo Technology and Super Micro Computer. The Post gives no dollar amounts or dates for those purchases, and it states a limit on its own finding: “It is not known whether Trump still owns the shares he bought in any of those companies.”
The sons' side is more direct. Donald Trump Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, which the Post reports “closed a $1.2 billion fund” focused on real estate including data centers, and which has invested in Cerebras Systems, Perplexity and Elon Musk's xAI since Trump returned to office (see Raskin Opens an Investigation Into 1789 Capital, Asking Whether Donald Trump Jr.'s Firm Made Bets With 'Almost Clairvoyant Accuracy' Using Administration Access). Eric Trump invests through American Ventures, an arm of Dominari Holdings. A month after the inauguration the brothers launched American Data Centers, which then merged with American Bitcoin, a mining company majority-owned by Hut 8, the developer of a large Texas data center project. Trump Media, meanwhile, is preparing to merge with the fusion company TAE Technologies and plans to license Truth Social posts to AI developers through TruthAPI (see Trump Media Sells Traders Faster Access to Trump's Market-Moving Truth Social Posts for Up to $100,000 a Month, and Raskin Opens an Inquiry).
The policy running alongside it: on September 19 Trump announced an “AI Force,” promised not to “hinder or stifle” the industry, and said existing criminal and civil law is regulation enough (see Trump Says the Only Guardrail AI Needs Is a 'STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT' and Tells Critics to 'BEWARE').
What the evidence does not show is motive, and neither outlet claims it does. The Guardian wrote, “It's not clear that financial interests are driving Trump's policy, but the two have moved in close parallel.” This entry records a structural conflict of interest: a president with no blind trust, and sons with money in the industry, setting that industry's rules. It does not record proof that the holdings caused the policy. If the White House's account of his brokerage accounts is accurate, some of his AI-related stock is a by-product of index weighting rather than a bet.
The White House's position, from spokesman Davis Ingle: there are “no conflicts of interest,” and “Neither President Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence, or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested or when investments are bought or sold.” A 1789 Capital spokesperson said Trump Jr. acts as a private citizen. Trump himself said in July, “You know why I'm profiting, because the stock market's going up.”
Don Fox, a former acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, told the Post, “No president since we've had this regime of conflict-of-interest statutes has ever conducted their finances this way.” Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) put it more sharply on MS NOW: “the first family has a financial stake in this industry, and as a result, the president of the United States is compromised.” The federal conflict-of-interest statute that would bar any other executive branch employee from acting on matters affecting his own holdings does not apply to the president (see Trump's Q1 Disclosure Shows 3,700+ Stock Trades, Including Buys in Nvidia, Palantir, and Axon as His Administration Steered Billions in Business Their Way and Trump Made More Than 1,000 Securities Trades in a Single Month, Worth Up to $263 Million, While Setting the Policies That Move Those Markets).