Status: 04/15/2023 12:39 p.m
Former US President Trump has provided information on his income: This includes income from speaking and from his trading card series. The step is a prerequisite for his application as a presidential candidate.
For the first time since leaving office, former US President Donald Trump has voluntarily disclosed his finances. According to the approximately 100-page published filing, he reports earnings from his digital trading card series, the company behind his online platform Truth Social, and speaking engagements.
The move is a prerequisite for Trump’s re-run as the Republican presidential nominee in next year’s election.
Money with digital trading card series
According to the report, Trump’s earnings from his digital trading cards alone range from $100,000 to $1 million. Priced at $99 each, the images show the Republican in a variety of poses, including cowboy, astronaut and fighter pilot.
According to the documents, he also earned more than five million dollars (around 4.5 billion euros) with appearances as a speaker.
Hardly any revenue through Truth Social
With his online platform Truth Social, he reportedly earned little money. The income from the social network amounted to less than 201 dollars (around 181 euros), according to the form he submitted to the Electoral Commission (FEC). The federal authority monitors compliance with rules relating to election campaign financing. Trump owns 90 percent of Truth Social. Despite the low income, he estimated the value of the platform at between five and 25 million dollars.
Trump launched the Truth Social 2022 platform. A year earlier, he had been banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube after his supporters stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Although he has since been reinstated there, he continues to rely primarily on Truth Social.
The information filed with the FEC is the first on Trump’s financial condition since he left the White House and founded several new companies. However, the information content is limited: while he had to provide exact income information during his tenure as President, a range is now sufficient.
Trump had refused to disclose his finances for years.
The US Supreme Court cleared the way for the release of Trump’s tax returns in November after years of litigation. The tax authority IRS subsequently handed over the documents for the years 2015 to 2020 to the Tax Policy Committee in the House of Representatives.
The documents were finally released after years of legal wrangling.