Trump's Multimillion-Dollar Stock Trades: Our Investigation Leads to the White House, and the SEC Now Has the Evidence

Donald Trump likes to talk about the future of artificial intelligence. Microsoft and Amazon are investing billions in that future, especially in data centers. While the president pushes the industry's expansion, millions of dollars' worth of stock in both companies is being sold in his name. The figures come from his own financial disclosure. For July alone, it lists 1,156 securities transactions. Purchases totaled at least $43.6 million, while sales amounted to at least $35.6 million. The president governs from the White House. Meanwhile, his money keeps moving through the financial markets.

On July 20, Microsoft and Amazon shares worth between $5 million and $25 million each were sold in Trump's name. That same day, shares of defense contractor Northrop Grumman also left his portfolio, while the president signed new requirements for the defense industry. Just 3 days later, shares in all 3 companies were bought back: Microsoft shares worth $100,001 to $250,000, Amazon shares worth $1,001 to $15,000, and Northrop Grumman shares worth $15,001 to $50,000. It's all there in black and white, on pages 33 and 34 of his own financial disclosure.

The political ties to these companies are impossible to overlook. Trump promotes artificial intelligence and the construction of the very data centers Microsoft and Amazon are pouring billions into. At the same time, the companies are putting money into various projects tied to the president. That has already been publicly reported. Now there are the documented stock trades as well. A president makes decisions about the economic conditions under which companies operate while his private fortune holds shares in businesses affected by those decisions. The shares change hands, but the power to make political decisions stays in the White House. The form doesn't reveal what information was behind the July 20 sales.

The trail leads first to Northrop Grumman. On July 20, shares of the defense contractor worth between $250,001 and $500,000 were sold in Trump's name. That same day, the president signed an order imposing stricter requirements on U.S. defense contractors purchasing critical materials. Northrop Grumman isn't named in the order. Even so, the new requirements affected the industry in which the company makes its billions. Before the market opened the next morning, the defense contractor released its quarterly earnings. According to the company, it had raised its 2026 revenue and earnings forecasts, and its order backlog stood at around $105 billion. Yet the stock fell 2.2 percent on July 21. Strong numbers, red on the board: Wall Street reads financial statements differently than a company's press office does. 3 days later, on July 23, Northrop Grumman shares were bought again in Trump's name, this time for $15,001 to $50,000. Between the larger sale and the smaller purchase came a presidential order and the release of the company's earnings. On top of that, the stock price dropped. The financial disclosure doesn't say whether the upcoming earnings or the order played any part in the trading decisions. It gives the date of the transaction but leaves out the time. That detail would be needed to reconstruct exactly what happened. Time stands still in this document.

With Microsoft and Amazon, comparing the filings with stock market data reveals a sequence that's just as hard to ignore. Microsoft had closed at $393.82 on July 17, and Amazon at $247.23. On July 20, both climbed: Microsoft rose 2.15 percent to $402.29, while Amazon gained 1.12 percent to $249.99. On that very day, shares in both companies were sold in Trump's name, each sale worth between $5 million and $25 million. The selling took place on a day when prices were rising. By July 23, Microsoft had fallen to $381.58 and Amazon to $233.66. Now the financial disclosure shows new purchases: $100,001 to $250,000 in Microsoft shares and $1,001 to $15,000 in Amazon shares. On July 23, Trump also announced plans to expand his initiative intended to protect electricity customers from higher costs caused by data center construction. Microsoft and Amazon had already joined the related voluntary commitment in March; both have billions of dollars in investments at stake in that expansion. Those modest repurchases therefore fell on the same day the president devoted another political initiative to an industry he has explicitly said he wants to promote. On that date, politics and his portfolio share a line.

The documented closing prices show that both stocks lost considerable value between the sale date and the purchase date. Whether the individual trades were actually executed at those prices remains unknown. Trump's disclosure gives no execution prices. The times are missing too, along with the moment the orders were placed. Our investigation makes it possible to reconstruct the sequence of events. It makes no allegations, simply lays the dates side by side and now demands a precise answer: When did the financial advisers receive which orders, and what information did they have at that exact moment? The material has since also been submitted to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC.

For July, the disclosure shows transactions with a total value ranging from $79 million to $270 million. In June, trading had already reached between $78.1 million and $263.1 million. Those wide ranges exist because the required disclosures give value brackets rather than exact amounts for individual transactions. That makes any calculation harder. Even the lowest reported figures show just how much money changed hands during Trump's presidency. The $79 million is trading volume. It must not be presented as personal profit. How much Trump actually made from the sales remains unknown from this disclosure.

Trump has long insisted that independent advisers manage his portfolio and make decisions without him. The documents don't reveal who initiated the July 20 sales of Microsoft and Amazon shares or on what basis, and they provide no evidence of instructions from Trump either. His financial interest merely changes messengers. According to financial disclosures, Trump's businesses brought in more than $2 billion in 2025, including income from cryptocurrencies and overseas real estate. That same year reportedly saw around 21,000 stock trades, including shares in companies Trump spoke about publicly. His initial disclosure listed 800. The gap remains partly unexplained; with sums this large, every missing piece carries weight.

While the president signs orders, shares in companies affected by his policies are sold in his name: Microsoft and Amazon on July 20, each for as much as $25 million. Northrop Grumman joined them on the day the new defense requirements were signed; 3 days later, shares in all 3 were bought again. Across 37 pages of financial disclosures, 1 question remains that no financial adviser can answer: How far is the desk in the White House from its occupant's own stock portfolio?