I missed this article in Forbes from last October. How in the world was it ok for a president to have such conflicts of interest?
Donald Trump has a lot of customers. There are people who purchase his food in Trump Tower, spending $20 on a burger. There are those who stay in his hotel rooms, paying $475 for a bed. There are others who join Trump-owned clubs, perhaps doling out as much as $200,000. But the president’s most important customers—by far—are the companies renting space in his buildings.
There aren’t all that many of them, but they pay big money. In fact, just 25 tenants pay an estimated $115 million in rent every year. Those payments alone account for roughly 20% of all revenue flowing into the president’s business empire. And since leasing space tends to be a high-margin business, that $115 million might translate into $65 million of operating profit, or roughly 40% of the estimated total Trump Organization earnings in a typical year.
Two of the most lucrative deals, involving Gucci and Nike, are close to Trump’s old home. Gucci leases space inside Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue, and Nike had a location around the corner on 57th Street. The president also brings in significant sums at 40 Wall Street, a skyscraper in Lower Manhattan, where Walgreens Boots Alliance pays a reported $3.4 million a year in rent.
The true hubs for Trump’s big-money tenants, however, are 1290 Avenue of the Americas in New York City and 555 California Street in San Francisco. Trump holds a 30% interest in each building, so our calculations only attribute 30% of the rent from each tenant to the president. Even still, the money adds up. Bank of America pays an estimated $22 million for space inside the 555 California Street complex in San Francisco; Trump’s share of that equals $6.5 million. Goldman Sachs pays a reported $5.8 million, an estimated $1.7 million of which we credit to Trump.
The president has never had to publicly disclose who pays him rent. Federal disclosure laws, designed before anyone imagined a real estate billionaire in the White House, demand that officials disclose which entities pay them directly, but not who pays those entities. Since Trump holds his commercial real estate portfolio through a series of shell companies, he does not have to divulge his tenants. The Trump Organization did not respond to a request for comment.
Forbes first investigated the president’s rent roll around the beginning of 2018, tracking down roughly 75% of all money flowing into the president’s commercial properties. My book White House, Inc., released last month, digs deeper, detailing more than 90% of the money flowing into the portfolio.
Click over to see the full list, including banks, insurance companies, investment firms and various other businesses all of which have business with the government in one way or another. It should have been a scandal.
Why wasn’t it?