Dec. 31, 2025

Since his return to office, President Trump and his family have engaged in a moneymaking campaign like none in modern American history.

A headshot of President Trump sits in the center of a network diagram, with more than a dozen faded images of family members and icons for government agencies and businesses around it. The people and entities are tied together with dotted lines to show connections and with arrows to symbolize business and government actions.

It is enriching the family, as well as important officials and business partners.

The view of the network diagram widens, and more images of officials and business partners, including Eric Trump and Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, come into view.

The president’s family and allies are benefiting from their proximity to power, retaining or building stakes in industries that the government oversees and that Mr. Trump’s policies have boosted.

The view of the network diagram widens further and reveals dozens more people and organizations, including the Trump Organization and the family’s crypto venture, World Liberty Financial.

And several are negotiating deals with foreign governments, raising questions about the administration’s diplomatic priorities.

An even wider view of the diagram shows dozens more entities, including the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

This tangled web is a hallmark of the president’s second term, where the lines between U.S. interests and those of Mr. Trump’s inner circle are blurred.

The network diagram is in full view, with more than 100 people and organizations, and more than 200 lines connecting them. Labels show that the connections fall into four categories: crypto ventures; chips and A.I.; real estate; and defense and tech.

Mr. Trump re-entered the White House without agreeing, as he did in his first term, not to start any new international business deals. As his sons have shifted the focus of the family business from real estate to financial deals that monetize the Trump name, questions about conflicts of interest have multiplied. This visualization of those deals and projects is based on the past year of New York Times reporting on the subject.

Mr. Trump, once a skeptic of cryptocurrency, is now its champion. He has rolled back Biden-era restrictions, promoted crypto investments from the Oval Office and signed a bill to advance crypto priorities.

But Mr. Trump is also an industry player who stands to gain from these policies. His family’s crypto empire is now its most lucrative venture. And the Trump crypto firms have given private enterprise and governments unprecedented access to the president’s sphere.

For example, Mr. Trump and his partners launched a type of cryptocurrency known as a memecoin just before his second inauguration. Sales of the coin, $TRUMP, have led to hefty trading fees.

A close-up of one part of the diagram shows how Mr. Trump profits from his memecoin venture. The president promotes the coin in his name to investors who buy it. Then Trump-linked corporate entities receive fees, and some go to Mr. Trump’s trust.

Mr. Trump offered top $TRUMP buyers a private dinner. One guest was Justin Sun, the founder of Tron. His firm is one of many with financial ties to Mr. Trump that have gained from a more lenient Securities and Exchange Commission.

A diagram shows how Mr. Trump is tied to Justin Sun. The Securities and Exchange Commission froze a case against Mr. Sun’s company. Mr. Sun has also spent more than $40 million on Mr. Trump’s memecoin, with fees going back to Trump-linked entities.

Mr. Trump and his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, founded the crypto firm World Liberty Financial with their sons and others in 2024. The families have been given an ownership stake worth billions of dollars on paper, and they receive a cut of sales of its cryptocurrency, $WLFI.

Business action

This diagram shows how Mr. Trump, Mr. Witkoff and their sons profit from the crypto firm World Liberty Financial. Mr. Trump promotes the token and investors buy it. Proceeds go to the firm, and a cut of that revenue goes to Trump and Witkoff family corporate entities, and ultimately to the family members.

Mr. Trump, who wants the United States to lead the world in artificial intelligence, has tasked top aides to expand the nation’s A.I. infrastructure. His commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, has twisted the arms of American allies, dangling policy favors in exchange for investments in U.S. data centers.

The secretary’s sons, who now run his company, are helping A.I. firms raise capital for some of these centers. Their father has helped push an industry that has brought billions of dollars in new business deals for the Lutnick family-controlled real estate firm, banking millions in fees in the process.

The president also wants to export the nation’s advanced microchip technology, designed to support A.I.’s demands.

Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Witkoff and the president’s A.I. and crypto czar, David Sacks, have been pushing for the sale of U.S. chips to nations that are simultaneously negotiating with the business partners and families of Mr. Lutnick, Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Trump.

Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Sacks helped negotiate a deal in May to allow the American-designed chips to be sent to the United Arab Emirates, despite national security concerns among some in the White House.

A diagram shows that Mr. Trump and his officials met with Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates to discuss an A.I. chips deal. Sheikh Tahnoon runs a company that will receive many of the United States’ advanced chips.

The Emiratis also made a deal in May with World Liberty to purchase $2 billion of the firm’s stablecoins. The Trumps and Witkoffs are poised to make millions of dollars in profits, drawing scrutiny from Congress.

This diagram shows that Sheikh Tahnoon’s firm, MGX, bought World Liberty Financial’s stablecoins, bringing profits to World Liberty Financial.

The United Arab Emirates is also a major partner of the president’s real estate business, a lucrative piece of the family portfolio that has taken off since Mr. Trump’s return to office. The president’s sons now run the Trump Organization, but their father still benefits financially.

Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have made deals for Trump-branded hotels and other businesses on three continents this year and in the months before their father’s second term. It’s estimated that the Trump family makes millions of dollars from each deal and in some cases more than $10 million. Several of the projects involve foreign governments or firms backed by nations’ wealth funds.

Jared Kushner, a son-in-law of the president, has also been making deals through his investment firm Affinity Partners, which has collected billions of dollars from investors in Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations.

Dar Global, the Trump Organization’s most important foreign business partner, has at least eight Trump-branded projects. It is closely tied to the Saudi government.

A diagram shows that the company DarGlobal has made branding deals in several countries, including Qatar, Oman and Saudi Arabia, in partnership with the Trump Organization. Mr. Trump no longer runs the company, but he still benefits financially.

In November, the president engaged in sensitive national security talks with Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, who is also a critical figure in a potential deal for a Trump-branded project.

A diagram shows Mr. Trump’s ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. The president met with the Saudi crown prince for security talks. The Trump Organization may also make a branding deal with a Saudi development firm run by the prince.

The complex network is only expanding. Trump Media is now looking to become a nuclear fusion power company. Donald Trump Jr. has financial ties to companies that secured Pentagon contracts this year, though he has said he has not reached out to any government officials on their behalf. And Elon Musk, Mr. Trump’s biggest campaign donor, continues to benefit from connections to the agencies that oversee his companies, some of which are major federal contractors.

Mr. Trump has noted that conflict of interest laws do not apply to him. Officials like Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Sacks have divested some of their interests in their industries or have waivers for work they have kept a stake in. But the mixing of politics and profitmaking in Mr. Trump’s second term has shattered American norms.

The president has not been shy about the rewards. In April, as a Saudi-backed golf tournament opened at one of his Florida clubs, he posted on Truth Social: “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE.”

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/12/31/us/trump-deals-policy-conflicts-web.html