Trump Routinely Buys Stock in Companies Days Before His Administration Approves Lucrative Decisions for Them

Donald Trump purchased stock in Nvidia and AMD just days before his own administration approved lucrative chip deals that sent both companies’ valuations soaring. The purchases are among 3,642 securities transactions—roughly 58 trades per trading day—that Trump disclosed in a 113-page filing covering January through March 2026, representing between $220 million and $750 million in total activity.

NOTUS reports:

Trump purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on Jan. 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China. … Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million dollars worth of Nvidia stock on Feb. 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. …

AMD, another AI semiconductor company, was also authorized by the Department of Commerce to sell their chips to Chinese customers on Jan. 13. Trump purchased $50,000 to $100,000 worth of AMD stock on Jan. 6. …

Trump purchased at least $260,000 worth of Palantir stock during the first three months of 2026. … In February, Palantir struck a billion-dollar agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to use the company’s software in the president’s deportation surge. …

On Feb. 10, Trump also purchased $1 million to $5 million in shares of Axon, the company that makes Tasers. … Immigration and Customs Enforcement outlined its plan to spend $220 million on Tasers over five years on Feb. 24 … in what would be a major boon for Axon.

The White House says Trump’s assets are held in a trust managed by his children with no input from him, and that “there are no conflicts of interest.” The disclosure forms do not specify who placed the trades. What the forms do establish is that the president of the United States holds between $1 million and $5 million in Nvidia stock while his Commerce Department shapes the regulatory environment that determines Nvidia’s access to the Chinese market.

The disclosure was also filed late—a handwritten notation on the cover confirms Trump paid late-filing fees. A president trading at this volume, in companies his administration regulates, while missing his own disclosure deadlines, shows total contempt for the ethical rules meant to constrain exactly this kind of behavior.

At his own State of the Union, Trump called on Congress to ensure members “cannot corruptly profit from using insider information.” Democratic Rep. Mark Takano shouted back: “How about you first?”

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

© The UnPopulist, 2026

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