On May 14, 2026, the U.S. Office of Government Ethics published Trump's first-quarter 2026 financial disclosure. The filing covered more than 3,700 individual trades over three months, more than 40 per day. The cumulative value reported in OGE's broad ranges fell between roughly $220 million and $750 million.
Bloomberg, NOTUS, NBC News, and CNBC reported on the trading patterns. Among the disclosed transactions: Trump bought as much as $5 million each of Nvidia, Oracle, Microsoft, Boeing, and Costco. He also made trades valued between $1 million and $5 million in ServiceNow, Adobe, Broadcom, Motorola, Amazon, Texas Instruments, and Dell. The disclosure marked a shift from his previous bond-focused portfolio toward concentrated technology and defense-adjacent holdings.
NOTUS focused on three companies where Trump's trades coincided with his administration boosting the company's business: Nvidia, where Trump made a $1-5 million purchase on February 10, 2026 and the Commerce Department then approved chip sales to China one week later; Palantir, where Trump's Q1 purchases totaled at least $260,000 and where the administration announced a $1 billion DHS/ICE deportation-software contract in February; and Axon, the Taser maker, where Trump purchased $1-5 million on February 10 and ICE announced a $220 million Taser spending plan two weeks later on February 24.
The White House responded that Trump's 'assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.' The Trump Organization said the holdings are 'maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions.' Both statements echo claims made about the first-term trust, which the Office of Government Ethics director resigned over in 2017, calling it 'not even close' to a true blind trust because the trustees were Trump's adult sons.
A May 28, 2026 PBS NewsHour segment underscored the scale and the timing. Forbes senior editor Dan Alexander said, “The fact that he not only owns stocks, but is actively trading them, there's just no precedent in recent history,” noting Trump's net worth rose from $2.4 billion in 2021 to about $6.1 billion. Former George W. Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter said, “If, through his official actions, he actually can change the price of the stock, and he owns the stock, that's a financial conflict of interest that should be prohibited,” adding that a Treasury secretary who owned bank stock and acted on it “would commit a felony.” The disclosure also shows energy stocks (Phillips 66, ExxonMobil, Chevron) and defense stocks (Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics) bought on March 23, 2026, the same day Trump announced “very good” Iran negotiations; oil prices then fell nearly 11%. A separate March 25 purchase of $15,001-$50,000 in TKO Group Holdings preceded his White House promotion of a UFC event (see Trump Is Building a 5,000-Seat UFC Cage on the White House South Lawn to Celebrate His 80th Birthday and America's 250th). Vice President JD Vance defended Trump: “The president doesn't sit at the Oval Office buying and selling stocks. He has independent wealth advisers who manage his money.”