Don Jr. And Eric Trump Landed This Much In Stock For Joining Firm’s Advisory Board

Forbes Breaking News

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were awarded 750,000 shares in Dominari Holdings, according to a new filing. for joining the company’s board of advisers, an entity with little evidence of functioning before their appointments. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.

00:07Joining me now is my Forbes colleague, staff writer Zach Everson. Zach, thanks so much for

00:11joining me. Thanks for having me back, Brittany. You have some updated reporting on how much Don

00:18Jr. and Eric Trump have made in stock since becoming involved in Dominari Holdings. So I

00:23want to parse through all of that. But first, can you talk to us about the firm? What exactly does

00:27it do? So it is a holding company. Previously, it had a different name and it was a pharmaceutical

00:33company. But now it is a holding company. It's listed on NASDAQ. Its headquarters are in Trump

00:39Tower, conveniently. And it has subsidiaries that work in wealth management, investment banking,

00:44sales trading, asset management, capital investment. So it really just seems, you know, it's got a pretty

00:49broad purview there. And like I said, this is an update to your story back from a month ago. And

00:55I want to read one of your headlines from March. This is what you wrote, quote, Trump's son's

01:00joint Dominari Holdings advisory board, but there's little public record the board existed

01:04beforehand. What exactly does this advisory board do?

01:11Yeah, that's that's a great question. Unlike boards of directors, which for corporations have

01:17very specific legal requirements, advisory board can kind of do anything. In this case, when

01:23they filed their advisory agreement, Dominaria Holdings said it was basically looking just to

01:27get general advice from time to time, have members of the advisory board recommend other people for

01:32the advisory board, and it might ask them to review plans and proposals. Now, in this case,

01:38the company did credit the advisory board, which had Don Jr. and Eric on it, of really kind of

01:45spearheading a recent partnership they had on a Bitcoin project. So they did get some credit from

01:52doing that, at least according to the company itself.

01:56And in your opinion, then, based on all of your reporting, why does it matter that there's such

02:00little evidence that this board existed before the Trump sons were appointed? What does that

02:05indicate to you?

02:07You know, it's certainly possible. I'm not saying this is definite. We didn't find any proof of this,

02:11but it certainly is possible that the board was kind of reconstituted here as a vehicle to just get

02:18the Trump involvement there. You know, when the Trump sons' names were attached to the company,

02:24its stock price shot up from about $6 to $13 and change a day or so later. You know, it has since

02:31fallen down, but, you know, it seems like a very easy way to attach the Trump's name to it

02:36with no real requirements for them to do much work if, you know, that's something Dominaria Holdings

02:42wanted to do there.

02:42And based on the different guidelines for what the advisory board member needs to do, I mean,

02:48it sounds like a pretty cushy position. So how much in stock were Don Jr. and Eric Trump given?

02:55So they were given what's currently worth about $3 million worth of stock. So they got 250,000

03:01shares for joining. And then when the company reached a milestone related to its market capitalization,

03:07didn't specify exactly what, they took in another 500,000 shares. So that gives them a total of 750,000

03:15shares that they were awarded for joining the advisory board. Like I said, that's currently worth about

03:19$3 million. They also did purchase some shares on their own, spending another $1 million via private placement.

03:28So they were given $3 million each in shares. What specifically are they doing for the company?

03:33Or what are they bringing to the table that merits this much money?

03:38Well, definitely the Trump name. You know, as we did see that the market cap shot up when their

03:44names were attached to it. So that certainly brought some value for shareholders. And they were credited,

03:50Eric especially was credited with kind of spearheading this recent partnership. So it sounds like he is,

03:56you know, in fact, doing some work for the company. And they've deemed, you know, what he's done

04:01to be worth, you know, $3 million. And they were given these shares before most of the work was

04:07done. You know, it looks like the milestone regarding the market capitalization would have

04:11been hit within a few days of them being announced as members of the advisory board. So we're talking

04:17750,000 shares for signing on, watching the market capitalization rise in about three, four days

04:25worth of time being on the advisory board, it appears.

04:27And per usual, I'm going to ask you, are there any conflicts of interest here? Are there any

04:32ethical concerns? Because you and I talked before about how the trading volume was a lot different

04:38before and then after the Trump names were announced and attached to the firm.

04:45Yeah, that's one of the more interesting aspects of a story that I find pretty interesting altogether,

04:50is that the trading volume started spiking in late December. So about six weeks before the Trump's

05:01involvement was announced. And it was, it was very interesting. I mean, it just, it just really

05:05skyrocketed to levels that we had not previously seen. And I couldn't find anything that really seemed

05:11to justify the increase in volume. I reached out to some professors and legal law professors who

05:19specialized in finance, they couldn't find anything. I went through LexisNexis and Google News looking

05:24to see if there was any news about the company that justified such a spike. And I really couldn't

05:29find anything. So, you know, it is interesting, you know, did news of their pending, you know,

05:36joining the advisory board get out there early? You know, did there was a Trump connection a little

05:42bit before then in that Ron Lieberman, who's also a senior executive with the Trump board,

05:46had become a board member of Dominary Holdings in December. So it's possible, you know, people may

05:53have just seen that name get attached to it and started thinking Trump, but it is some very strange

05:58trading matters. Tariffs, as we know, have sent the stock market into essentially a tailspin.

06:06Has President Trump's wide sweeping tariff plan impacted his son's share prices here? I mean,

06:11what does that look like? You know, it's hard to say specifically, this doesn't look like a company

06:17that has a ton of exposure to tariffs. That said, they did list tariffs as what is the risk factors

06:23in their SEC filings. You know, then you've also seen the stock, like many, many, many other stocks

06:29has gone down over the last, you know, several weeks. So it's certainly, you know, overall market

06:34conditions are certainly going to impact what's going on with the stock as well.

06:37When you think about the Trump's business Rolodex, you're thinking real estate, you're thinking

06:43hotels, you're thinking golf courses. Dominary Holdings announced it was entering the AI data

06:50center space. Is that something that the Trump's sons have a lot of experience in?

06:56Not until recently. Obviously, they've been involved with Dominary's work in that sector.

07:00The president has launched a meme coin that they're involved, or excuse me, the world financial coin

07:06that they're involved in. There also is, you know, Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company

07:13of TrueSocial, has been starting to get into some blockchain and crypto work. So there's a little

07:18bit there, but, you know, their experience in real estate and marketing absolutely torques their

07:24experience here in Bitcoin and data centers. I'm sure there are plenty of other people out there with a lot

07:30more experience than what those two bring to the table. And as we know, AI is a rapidly developing,

07:36rapidly shifting space. What is President Trump's policy surrounding AI? Is he bullish on the industry?

07:45Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's one of the things that he has really been pushing for. He got a lot

07:50of backing from Silicon Valley, most notably Elon Musk, and has taken a very, you know, hands-off

07:55approach towards AI. They want it regulated, but they want it regulated lightly. He seems like he's

08:00very willing to give them what they want in that regard. So, you know, here you've got a president

08:05who is making policies that are beneficial to this company that his sons are involved.

08:12Zach Everson, per usual, I appreciate your reporting. Thanks for joining me.

08:17My pleasure.

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