The president and his family are hard at work enriching themselves, but they’re far from the only ones in the administration cashing in. Take Dan Scavino, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, who reported earning at least $1 million in capital gains last year from his stake in Trump Media & Technology Group, the company that runs the president’s Truth Social platform.
The Washington Sun reports:
Scavino valued his Trump Media & Technology Group stock holding at between $1 million and $5 million, according to his financial disclosure, which he filed last month and the federal Office of Government Ethics released this week. (Government officials are only required by law to disclose stock values in broad ranges.) Scavino joins recently departed White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt among White House officials who reported investments last year in a Trump business venture. Scavino previously directed White House social media efforts. He has continued to play a key role managing Trump’s social media presence, as The Washington Post reported last year, while personally profiting from his stake in Trump’s social media outfit. ...
Scavino’s financial disclosure also indicates that he earned up to $100,000 in capital gains from stock in financial platform company Robinhood Markets, which he valued at between $100,000 and $250,000. Robinhood has partnered with the U.S. Treasury to serve as broker for Trump Accounts, a tax-advantaged government investment account designed to help American children build wealth. The company also contributed $2 million to Trump’s 2025 presidential inauguration. Its stock price is up more than 100% from when Trump began his second term.
Scavino, a longtime Trump loyalist, has served across both of Trump’s terms as director of social media, senior adviser for digital strategy, and deputy chief of staff for communications. Few people understand better how the president uses his online presence, including to make money, as Trump has attempted to do by selling advance access to his posts. Scavino has helped run Trump’s account while holding a seven-figure stake in the company that hosts it, so every post he puts up on Truth Social is, in a modest way, a deposit in his own portfolio. The White House says it has “no further concerns” about Scavino’s holdings, a standard it has applied with admirable consistency to the president’s own business dealings.
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.
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