00:00Today on Forbes, how Barron Trump may have earned $40 million from his dad's crypto venture.
00:07Barron Trump was all in on cryptocurrency before his father knew hardly anything about it.
00:13During an interview in September, when the Trump family launched a crypto venture named World
00:17Liberty Financial, the president said, quote, Barron knows so much about this. Barron's a
00:22young guy, but he knows it. He talks about his wallet. He's got four wallets or something,
00:27and I'm saying, what is a wallet? In the nine months since, Donald Trump has made an estimated
00:33billion dollars or so on crypto, and his youngest son has done quite well too. In fact, it's possible
00:40that Barron Trump has earned nearly $40 million, leaving him with an estimated $25 million fortune
00:46after accounting for taxes. That appears to be much more money than his older siblings piled up at his
00:52age. Trump's older children had small stakes in their father's tower in Las Vegas, then his hotel
00:58in Washington, D.C. But none of that seems to have thrown off as much cash as the crypto craze,
01:03which provided Barron with an opulent welcome into the Trump family business.
01:08World Liberty Financial's so-called gold paper, a Trumpified white paper, named Barron as a,
01:14quote, Web3 ambassador, the same title given to Don Jr. and Eric Trump. All three are also listed on
01:20its website as co-founders along with four others. But for months, it remained a complete mystery how
01:26much of a stake the Trump heirs received in the venture. A week ago, however, their father,
01:32dubbed, quote, chief crypto advocate in the gold paper and co-founder Emeritus on the website,
01:37released a financial disclosure report revealing that he had held a personal stake of 52.5 percent
01:43and unnamed family members owned another 22.5 percent. The document does not detail the split
01:49among the family members. But if Don Jr., Eric and Barron shared equal stakes, each would have taken
01:557.5 percent of the overall venture, the exact same amount that Trump's three eldest children held in
02:01his D.C. hotel. How much money has World Liberty Financial thrown off so far? The venture sold at least
02:08550 million dollars of tokens, with everything after the first 30 million apparently flowing to the
02:14owners. Barron and his older brothers, therefore, could have received 39 million dollars apiece before
02:20taxes. But there is one complication. The Trump family apparently sold a partial interest in the
02:26venture sometime around January 2025, a transaction that seems to have come after the cutoff date of the
02:32recent financial disclosure. Depending on exactly when the Trumps sold at stake, and for how much, Barron and his
02:39brothers could have come away with a different sum. Representatives of World Liberty Financial and the
02:45Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment. Regardless of Barron's exact take, there is little
02:52question that, at age 19, he has already joined the long list of presidential relatives who have found ways to cash in on
02:59their proximity to power. He was just nine when his father famously descended the golden escalator inside
03:04Trump Tower to announce a presidential bid. Seventeen months later, Donald Trump won the election, moving into the
03:11White House in January 2017. Barron and Melania followed that summer. Once in Washington, he reportedly enrolled at
03:19St. Andrew's Episcopal School in Potomac, Maryland, where tuition today runs upwards of $50,000 annually. His public
03:26appearances remained rare, but according to a biography of Melania published in 2020, she renegotiated her
03:32prenuptial agreement in 2018 to secure her son better inheritance terms and more involvement in the family
03:39business. During his years out of the White House and out of the spotlight, Barron reportedly attended Oxbridge
03:45Academy in West Palm Beach, Florida, which charges annual tuition of over $40,000. In September 2024, he enrolled in New York
03:54University's Stern School of Business, which costs $99,000 per year. That same month, his father
04:00announced the creation of World Liberty Financial. Barron should not have any trouble affording tuition.
04:07For full coverage, check out Kyle Kahn Mullins' piece on Forbes.com.
04:13This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.
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