On "Forbes Newsroom," Forbes staff writer Kyle Khan-Mullins discussed how far the net worths of President Trump and his top backers have dropped since the "Liberation Day" tariff announcement.
READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2025/04/04/heres-how-much-trumps-biggest-billionaire-donors-lost-thanks-to-tariffs/
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READ MORE: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylemullins/2025/04/04/heres-how-much-trumps-biggest-billionaire-donors-lost-thanks-to-tariffs/
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is my Forbes
00:07colleague, money and politics reporter Kyle Kahn-Mullins. Kyle, thanks so much for joining
00:12me. Always great to be here, Brittany. Thanks for having me. As we know, earlier this month,
00:18President Trump did announce and dub April 2nd as Liberation Day, where he unveiled his really
00:24sweeping tariff policy. And since then, global markets have melted down, trade wars have
00:29escalated, and recession fears have really bubbled up. But I want to talk about what you're
00:35reporting on, which is exactly how the tariff policies have impacted President Trump's top
00:40donors. Talk to us about that. Yeah, nobody is safe in a global trade war, and that includes
00:47Donald Trump's top donors. My colleague Dan Alexander and I, the day after Liberation Day,
00:54we ran the numbers, we calculated just how much all of these top 10 biggest donors, how much their
01:02net worth dropped after the stock market crash on that day. And I should note, this analysis was done
01:10as of the market close on Thursday. We're talking Monday afternoon, and the markets have only gone
01:16down further since then. So I do have some updated numbers for you that are even more up-to-date than
01:21the numbers that were in our story. But at the time, we were looking at a drop of, across all of
01:27his top 10 biggest donors, over $11 billion of wealth was wiped out. So even more than $11 billion,
01:36you're saying, has been wiped out since Thursday. But let's cut right to the chase here. Let's talk
01:41about the number one person on that list. It's Elon Musk. He's the richest person in the world.
01:46He's also Trump's biggest donor. He's also President Trump's advisor in the past couple
01:52of months. Remind us just how much he's donated, how much he's worth, and how much he's lost since
01:57Liberation Day. So Elon Musk, we calculated he gave around $360 million to Trump's re-election
02:05effort, which sounds like a ton of money. It is a ton of money. It's also a drop in the bucket for
02:09Elon Musk, who today is worth about $360 billion. And that is as of right now, Forbes' estimates,
02:18that includes the stock prices that are fluctuating minute to minute. At the time we ran our article,
02:24he had lost about $8.7 billion of his net worth. That was largely due to Tesla stock sliding. That
02:31is up to over $26 billion as of, I just checked a couple of minutes ago. So that looks like it's
02:38something like 6% or 7% of his entire net worth has slid. And I should note, that doesn't even
02:44include if the valuations of his private companies that aren't publicly traded. We didn't look at
02:50those. Those presumably would have slid at least a little bit as well, given the generalized economic
02:55turmoil. You're reporting that Musk and the number two on this donor list lost the most since
03:02President Trump unveiled these tariff policies. Talk to us about the number two and why these two are
03:07losing the most. So number two on the list was Miriam Adelson. This is the widow of Sheldon Adelson,
03:15a big casino mogul. So Miriam Adelson, one of Trump's biggest donors. She gave over $100 million
03:22to his re-election effort in 2024. Her net worth as of right now is $27 billion. But she has actually
03:32slid a pretty substantial amount. We calculated it was about a billion dollars when we published
03:37our article. That's up to almost $3 billion now. And the reason why both Xi and Musk have seen the
03:43biggest losses, the first biggest thing is just they have bigger fortunes. So of course,
03:47as a percentage, they're going to lose a little bit more. But the other big thing is that they're
03:52both pretty significantly exposed to business from China and East Asia, which are taking it on the chin
03:57with these tariffs. What's really interesting about this list you compiled is that some of the people
04:03mentioned on the list also serve in the Trump administration. So I want to first talk about
04:08Education Secretary Linda McMahon. How has her bottom line been impacted?
04:14Yeah, Linda McMahon, Education Secretary, like you said, so hasn't exactly been weighing in too much on
04:19the tariffs themselves. This is not her area of expertise. She's been put in charge of, according to Trump
04:25and according to her, shutting down the Department of Education. That is her goal. She wants to be the
04:29last Secretary of Education. But she's also a billionaire. She and her husband, Vince McMahon,
04:34they founded WWE way back in the 80s. And they still own a bunch of shares in that company's now
04:43parent company, TKO Holdings. They did see a slide in their net worth about $65 million. We calculated it
04:50then. That's probably up to over $150 million now. A lot of TKO, which owns WWE and which also owns
04:57other entertainment franchises, WWE and the UFC both have a lot of viewers overseas. And so my read on
05:06that situation is you're looking at generalized economic turmoil. You're looking at global trade
05:13and global commerce being upended. That means that companies that have more exposure overseas are
05:20going to see a big slide. They've seen something like five or six percent of their network wiped out
05:24at least. Someone on this list who has been very vocal about supporting President Trump's tariff
05:29policies are Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. This is what he said over the weekend, that the tariffs
05:35are a national security issue. That's what he said when defending them. He also said that they would
05:40stop other countries from ripping us off and that they will, quote, reset the power of the United
05:44States of America. But how have they exactly impacted his net worth?
05:50Howard Lutnick, I mentioned earlier East Asia's taking it on the chin. Howard Lutnick's really
05:55taking it on the chin. We estimate that he took something like $300 million off his net worth at
05:59least. And that was, again, on Thursday of last week, which is only after one day of this, of all of
06:06this, some of his companies have slid even more since then. So we could be talking, we could be
06:10looking at even bigger numbers. Now, he's worth $3 billion. He's doing okay. You know, we're not
06:16talking about a big threat to his network, but we are seeing some shrinkage. And the reason why is his
06:20companies, you've got an investment banking firm, you've got a brokerage firm. These are financial
06:24services companies, and they are pretty exposed to broad macroeconomic trends. And so when you have a
06:31macroeconomic shock, like these tariffs, that's going to hit financial services companies,
06:36particularly. In fact, you know, if he wants some thoughts on tariffs, he should listen to
06:40Cantor Fitzgerald, his own company. You know, they just today say they have a very bearish view on the
06:48U.S. market. And the reason why is because of tariff uncertainty.
06:52So Howard Lutnick has been defending these tariffs on the media circuit, but how are the other
06:57billionaires responding? Is anyone speaking out against the tariff policy?
07:02There are a couple of billionaires that we've seen that were Trump supporters that have been
07:06speaking out against the tariff policy. Most of them are keeping relatively quiet. I think that's
07:10the general trend. Bill Ackman, who's not on this list, but who was a big Trump supporter,
07:16he came out this morning slamming Howard Lutnick and then actually walking those comments back a
07:21little bit later. You have another guy, Elon Musk is another really good example. He's been very quiet
07:26on the tariff front. He hasn't really said much. And my colleague, John Hyatt, had a piece about
07:31that, I think, Friday or maybe on Monday. But Musk did actually tweet just this morning a video of
07:41Milton Friedman talking about the benefits of free trade. So if you want to read that as a statement
07:46on tariffs, you can't.
07:49So you're saying there's some more muted responses from these billionaire Trump donors. Has anyone except
07:55from Howard Lutnick, obviously, aside from him, has anyone been supportive of the Trump tariff
07:59policies?
08:01I want to shout out here, Elizabeth Uline. She and her husband, Richard, they co-founded the company
08:08Uline, spelled a little differently. But they do all sorts of packaging materials and boxes and
08:14industrial supply, all that kind of stuff. And Elizabeth, the Ulines are very quiet. They're very
08:21media shy generally. They don't talk a lot. But Elizabeth has spoken in the past about the need
08:27to reset America's trade relations. And at least on its face, that is what Trump said he's trying
08:33to do with all of these tariffs, is he's trying to reset the rules of the global economic order,
08:38which he claims has created a situation where America is being ripped off. So the Ulines might
08:44be supportive. Now, I don't want to speak for them. They didn't comment for this article,
08:47and they haven't spoken directly about these tariffs, as far as I know. But that's one area
08:53where he may have some support among some of his billionaire donors.
08:57I know that you said President Trump's top two billionaire donors, they've been hit the hardest,
09:02in part because of their business in China. Based on what you're seeing, are there any other trends?
09:07What other industries on this list are you seeing that have been hit the hardest?
09:10industries that I'm seeing, and I went and I looked at, I went and pulled the data from the
09:17stock market today, just so I had some updated figures. The biggest slides by far, you're looking
09:22at the tech industry, Elon Musk, right, is a good example there. You're also, the financial services
09:27sector is really getting hit hard by, in the recent market turmoil. I think one of the interesting
09:32sectors that is also getting hit hard is the industrial sector of the United States. And you might say,
09:37wait a second, tariffs are supposed to support manufacturing and physical industry. Why would
09:44the industrial sector, why would their stocks be declining? I would think that they'd be going up
09:47because they're going to have these protections against foreign competition, and that kind of
09:51thing. It turns out a lot of American industry, they import a lot of things from overseas. They
09:57import raw materials, and they import, you know, the components that they then turn into final
10:02products. You talk about the car industry, you talk about the steel industry, you talk about any of
10:06these industries. There's a lot of interconnectedness tied into this. And so a lot of them are actually
10:13suffering as well. Kyle, is there any other billionaire that's on this list that you want
10:18to touch on? You want to tell their story? You want to talk about how these tariff policies have
10:23been impacting their fortunes? I think Paul Singer is actually an interesting shout out here. And I find
10:32him particularly interesting, because back in 2016, he was at a he was at an event in Aspen, and he was
10:38not a particular fan of Trump at this point. And he said, Oh, my God, the thing I'm most worried
10:43about, for for, you know, Trump as president, potentially, this was before Trump became elected
10:49president, was tariffs and trade policy. And I really think that if he really says and does, if he does
10:56everything that he says, we could see a global depression. And he said that in 2016. Now, Singer
11:02came around to Trump over the years. Trump wasn't quite as protectionist in his first term as he,
11:08you know, said he was going to be on the trail. I'm wondering if Singer's having second thoughts
11:12now. I would love to talk to him, pick his brain about that. Ever since President Trump unveiled his
11:17tariff policy on April 2nd, on Liberation Day, the markets have plunged globally. People have been
11:23really outspoken against this. Economists have said, Hey, we are inching closer and closer, dangerously
11:29close to a recession. Even people who have been outspoken in support of Trump in the past, like people
11:35like Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy, have said, Hey, the tariff policies have really impacted my net worth
11:41here. I've had millions wiped out in a single day. But the person who announced the tariff policies,
11:46President Trump, he himself is a billionaire. So I am curious, how have his own tariff policies
11:51impacted his fortune?
11:55And it's a little hard to get an exact answer here. Most of President Trump's fortune is tied up in a
12:01combination of his old real estate empire. He's got a lot of cash from his recent crypto ventures.
12:06And then he does have this social media company, DJT, our Trump, you know, true social Trump media
12:11technology company, which trades under the ticker DJT. And when we published our article last week,
12:18DJT was only down about 2%, was, was beating the rest of the market, which was down 5% or more on
12:23that day. Now, I will say that has changed. Since then, DJT is down 12%, which is more in line with
12:31the rest of the market. So, and I'm saying that's 12% from the pre tariff, pre tariff times. So his, his,
12:41his fortune is absolutely taking a hit. He owns a lot of shares in DJT, and they are down quite a bit.
12:47That said, he's got an enormous amount of liquidity from his crypto dealings, which are
12:53things that were a little bit harder to track. And so I, he, the president's going to be just fine
12:59from a financial perspective, because of these tariffs.
13:03Kyle, we are certainly watching the markets closely, as they still are impacted by tariffs
13:09and the tariff news. And I hope you come back on and join me once there are developments and
13:13updates. Kyle Kahn Mullins, thanks so much for joining me.
13:17Always great to talk to you, Brittany. Thanks again for having me on.