Author: Dan Alexander, Forbes
Nora, Forbes
Proofread: Lemin
Vadim Fistikan started working at age 17, saving money through years of overtime, delaying personal expenses, and practicing self-discipline as an adult; by his late twenties, he had accumulated over $100,000. In 2021, this Washington state truck driver set his sights on a waterfront home in Florida, complete with a pool and a waterway leading directly to the river and the ocean, with his family living nearby. “We were all set to close on the house,” he said, “when all these Trump-related investments were heating up.”
At the core of this surge is Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the operator of the social platform Truth Social.
In October 2021, Trump officially unveiled the company’s development plan, declaring his intention to create a social platform without content moderation and to offer investment opportunities to supporters through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC). The SPAC’s stock price surged 1,650% over two days, then dropped by about 30% at the open of the third trading day. But to Festican, this was not a warning sign—it was an opportunity to enter at a discount. “I thought I had to get in,” said this voter, who had voted for Trump three times. He continued to increase his position, ultimately investing a total of $205,000.
The current market value of this investment is only $30,000.
Last autumn, Festican logged onto a real social platform to vent his frustrations. “I posted openly saying this was a complete scam,” he recalled. “But many netizens countered me, claiming I was just an anti-Trump supporter. I replied: I’ve been a strong believer in the project since its inception… and now I’m left with nothing.”
01. He is not the only one suffering losses.
Katherine Chiles, the former CFO of this SPAC, now shares a song on her real social media account, the lyrics of which accuse Trump of betraying his supporters and directly call him, “Donald Trump is a bastard.” Chad Nedohin, a church worship leader who previously served as a grassroots organizer for Trump Media’s retail shareholders, now openly states that the company is merely a money-making tool for Trump and his inner circle. “To them, we’re just韭菜 to be harvested for profit,” Nedohin said. “He doesn’t care about anyone.”
Throughout Trump’s life, his signature ventures—casinos in Atlantic City, public offerings on the New York Stock Exchange, and a nationwide political movement—have all relied on one group: loyal followers. When Trump left the presidency in 2021, he still had a massive base of supporters, and he quickly launched a monetization plan consisting of three steps: First, create business projects out of thin air with minimal personal investment while retaining the vast majority of equity; second, mobilize loyal followers to invest aggressively to maximize cash-out profits; third, watch as the assets collapse and divide up whatever residual value remains. Between 2021 and 2025, five projects under the Trump family raised funds from retail investors: Trump Media & Technology Group, World Liberty Financial, Trump Meme Coin, Melania Trump Meme Coin, and American Bitcoin.
Now, all projects have fallen into the collapse phase of step three.
Trump Media's stock has plunged 89% from its peak; World Liberty Financial token has dropped 82%; Trump Meme Coin has shrunk by 98%; Melania Meme Coin has crashed 99%; American Bitcoin Corporation's stock has fallen 95%. According to Forbes estimates, the Trump family has collectively cashed out $1.9 billion and still netted a profit of $3.1 billion; investors collectively have lost approximately $7 billion.
Representatives of the Trump Organization did not respond to requests for comment from journalists; a spokesperson for Trump Media also declined to comment. The company has previously sued multiple media outlets, including Forbes, alleging that reports claiming the company incurred losses in its first year of operation were false. The White House ignored questions regarding the president’s various profit-seeking business ventures, releasing only a policy statement. Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said, “President Trump is deeply committed to the American citizens who voted him into office and works every day to fight for their interests.”
02. The devastating cost of this scam to ordinary people is evident in Fistican’s experience.
He didn't just buy stock—he bought into a whole set of extravagant claims: that Trump would treat his supporters as partners, not as tools to be exploited. “I’ve put nearly all of my life savings into this one stock,” Festican said. “It’s the most egregious plunder and scam he’s ever pulled off.”
In January 2025, Nick Pinto was dining at the champion restaurant at Trump’s Miami golf resort, adorned with solid wood and genuine leather, when his phone received a Robinhood push notification: Trump has launched his personal memecoin.
At 26, Pinto primarily earns a living by creating videos for major social platforms. His due diligence amounted to nothing more than a quick Google search and scrolling through related content on X (formerly Twitter). “I thought, I’ll buy a little and see what happens—no one can predict where it’ll go,” he said, initially investing $7,000.
Pinto is one of the ordinary investors caught up in this investment frenzy. As Trump returned to the White House, this surge brought enormous windfall profits to the First Family. It all began with World Liberty Financial, the crypto project launched by Trump in September of the previous year. Billionaire Justin Sun, who was embroiled in allegations from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), invested $45 million in the project’s token after Trump’s election victory, followed by an additional $100 million to purchase Trump’s personal memecoin. Melania Trump also launched her own memecoin. In the period surrounding Trump’s official move into the White House, these three tokens experienced explosive trading activity, generating hundreds of millions of dollars in cash-out profits for the Trump family.
Trump then introduced an additional perk: the top 220 meme coin holders by position size will be invited to a dinner at his private golf club in Virginia.
“I was completely swept up in the moment,” Pinto said. He doubled down, investing up to $480,000—nearly 60% of his entire portfolio—into this memecoin, enough to secure him an invitation to the dinner. The event itself was both absurd and underwhelming. Pinto said it felt like a wedding, with mediocre food and poor service. “They didn’t even give me soda—I only had plain water the whole time.”
Another attendee recalled handing a cigarette to former NBA player Lamar Odom; as they stood outside, Odom answered a video call and said to Khloe Kardashian on the other end: “I’m with these kids trading crypto!”
After the dinner, the price of this memecoin continued to decline and never recovered, losing two-thirds of its value by the end of the year. Around this time, Pinto, persuaded by a friend who also attended the dinner, turned from a supporter to a critic of the token.
Pinto relayed his friend’s words: “This thing was just suddenly launched by the Trump family with no warning; no one can predict what will happen to this token next, or what their plans for it are.”
Pinto was persuaded to sell 75% of his position, locking in a paper loss of approximately $250,000. He held onto the remaining position, hoping for a major turnaround in the future.
He actually got his breakthrough. In April of the same year, Trump hosted another investor event at Mar-a-Lago, where attendees received gift bags containing Trump collectible cards, a presidential figurine with built-in cologne, and Trump-branded watches. “I almost didn’t get one—people kept stealing mine,” Pinto recalled. One attendee secretly took six. “After my bag was stolen, I saw one sitting on an empty chair, so I took it too.”
Meme coin merchandise
Trump hosted two in-person events for memecoin holders—one at his golf course in Virginia and another at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach. Attendees received bags filled with Trump-branded merchandise.
Bill Zanker, Trump's business partner, said at the April Mar-a-Lago event: "I am encouraging the president to hold events like this every six months."
Fragrance of Victory
The gift package includes a Guerlain perfume with a bottle shaped like a golden statue of Trump, with an online retail price of $249. Nick Pinto attended both meme coin events and said, "I haven't used it yet—I'm just using it as a decorative piece."
Winning Edge Commemorative Watch
Red-dial watches became popular gifts at the Mar-a-Lago event. Trump’s online store also sells other watch styles, one of which incorporates fabric fragments from the suit and tie he wore when photographed for his jail mugshot at Fulton County Jail in Georgia after being charged in 2023 with multiple offenses including racketeering.
Portrait Collectible Card
This set of Trump trading cards features his chant after being shot at in Butler, Pennsylvania, with a bullet grazing his ear: “Fight on, fight on, fight on!”
Nighttime Limited Baseball Cap
The traditional red "Make America Great Again" baseball cap is long outdated; guests at this meme coin-themed dinner each received a black cap featuring a portrait of Trump, a reproduced signature, and the name of his meme coin, $TRUMP.
I thought to myself, I'll buy a little and see how it goes—no one can predict what will happen next.
Some attendees wanted far more than inexpensive Trump-themed merchandise. Before the first dinner, Erbil Karaman, co-founder of Huma Finance, made an additional investment; at the time, the White House was reviewing legislation related to stablecoins—cryptocurrencies pegged to the U.S. dollar that the company uses for cross-border fund transfers. Karaman stated he did not engage in any lobbying during the event. Two months later, he received an invitation from the White House to attend the signing ceremony for the legislation.
03. The people who truly made big money from the Trump memecoin were mostly those who took the token the least seriously.
Morten Christensen, founder of the crypto news website airdropalert.com, bought the token at its early launch and sold it decisively several days after the market hype faded, earning nearly 30 times his initial investment. To secure spots at two dinner events, he held both spot tokens and opened short positions as a hedge; he spent approximately $1,200 in fees to secure a seat at the first event and only $500 for the second.
“Those hardcore MAGA supporters genuinely believe this narrative,” Christensen said. “I’m here purely to make money. I’ve joined several of these supporters’ group chats, and they always ignore all facts and data… I almost feel sorry for them.”
Even Sun Yuchen no longer pretends that Trump’s crypto products have investment value. In April, he filed a lawsuit accusing World Liberty Financial of forcing him to make additional investments, and freezing his token assets after he refused to comply. Sun Yuchen alleges fraud and extortion by the company, while World Liberty Financial defends its right to freeze his tokens and countersues for defamation. Sun Yuchen also claims that after the company funneled large sums of money to Trump and other insiders, it began taking on high-risk loans. Aside from Trump himself, he was once the most vocal promoter of the project to the public—but now he openly states that the project is “on the brink of collapse.”
The Capitol riot gave rise to fundraising scams
January 6, 2021
Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Twitter permanently suspended Trump’s personal account, turning the incident into a marketing talking point for him; Amazon ceased providing cloud hosting services to the right-wing social platform Parler, creating a supply gap in the market.
January 27, 2021
One week after leaving office, Trump met with two former contestants of The Apprentice at Mar-a-Lago to discuss building a media and technology empire.
October 20, 2021
Trump publicly announced Trump Media & Technology Group, a social media company planning to build an online ecosystem aligned with Trump, with its first product being Truth Social, a clone of Twitter.
October 22, 2021
Special purpose acquisition company Digital World plans to merge with Trump Media to go public; the stock surged to a historic high of $175, implying a valuation of over $25 billion for a company that has barely begun substantive operations.
March 25, 2024
After years of regulatory delays, Trump Media has finally completed its merger with the digital world and officially become a publicly traded company. The following day, the stock surged 59%.
September 30, 2024
As the presidential election enters its final stretch, Trump posted on Truth Social announcing a new project: "I promised to make America great again, and this time we’re fulfilling that promise through cryptocurrency. Free World Finance will help make America the global capital of crypto!" However, market response to the project has remained weak.
November 5, 2024
Trump defeated Kamala Harris to become the first U.S. president since Grover Cleveland in 1892 to be elected to two non-consecutive terms.
November 25, 2024
Binance billionaire Sun Zhen, embroiled in allegations by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, purchased $30 million worth of World Liberty Financial tokens, boosting the project’s momentum, which ultimately generated over $800 million in revenue for Trump.
January 17, 2025
Three days before the inauguration, Trump launched his personal memecoin. The fine print of the protocol warned buyers that the token is not an investment, yet his supporters flooded in, triggering a trading frenzy that ultimately generated over $600 million in revenue.
January 19, 2025
Melania Trump launched her own memecoin to boost her personal wealth. Financial disclosure reports show that the token, which has plummeted 99% from its all-time high, generated $6 million in income for the First Lady.
May 12, 2025
Bitcoin Company USA announced plans to go public through a merger with a special purpose acquisition company, prompting investors to buy heavily and driving the stock up 448%; since then, the stock has declined a cumulative 96%.
04. As a growing number of supporters began to harbor doubts, the Trump family initiated a series of intriguing asset adjustments.
A self-proclaimed global financial freedom project claiming to disrupt traditional finance has generated approximately $850 million in profits for Trump; subsequently, Trump heavily invested in one of the most conventional and stable assets in financial markets—municipal bonds. Meanwhile, Trump Media & Technology Group is less a social media company than a major holder of Bitcoin. At a time when its stock price was elevated, the company raised $2.4 billion through equity and debt financing, and then invested all of those funds into Bitcoin as its price neared historical highs.
This action erased approximately $1 billion in shareholder equity, yet left the company with an asset whose longevity far surpasses that of real social media. This platform, marketed as a bastion of free speech, recently banned a Forbes journalist who used the platform to reach out to shareholders. While Trump Media Group claims to empower everyone to speak, its definition of who is allowed to speak appears remarkably narrow.
During Trump's presidency, his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and his second son, Eric Trump, fully managed the day-to-day operations of their father's various assets, replicating their father's entire profit model. In March 2025, the brothers partnered with a data center company, securing a 20% share of its Bitcoin mining equipment, and renamed this business the American Bitcoin Company.
What did this data center company gain in return? A wave of investors swept up in the Trump-related hype. The company can use this opportunity to sell large amounts of shares to these investors, generating enough proceeds to fully offset the cost of giving up 20% equity. Bitcoin Corporation of America announced its SPAC listing on May 12, 2025, and the SPAC’s stock price surged 448%.
Ryan Kenney, 41, a military spouse with a background in architecture, now spends most of his time at home caring for two children. A week after the official announcement of the transaction, when the stock price of Bitcoin Inc. in the U.S. dropped, he immediately invested $60,000, believing he had seized an opportunity by buying at a low price. However, the stock’s value relied entirely on market hype, lacking any solid operational fundamentals—making the widely circulated meme stock mantras, “Buy the dip!” and “Buy more as it falls to average down!” especially dangerous. Kenney continued to add to his position, eventually investing a total of $98,000; today, the value of his holdings has dwindled to just $9,000.
Lately, he keeps thinking about other investors who have found themselves in the same situation, and can’t help but consider the overall scale of their losses. “Maybe no one lost as much as I did,” he says, “but there could be hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S., each losing five thousand dollars.”
Back to Fistican—he still couldn’t let go of the Florida property. With his savings depleted, he settled for a 18,000-dollar plot overgrown with weeds, planning to build a home there someday. He worked freight in the Pacific Northwest, where the U.S.-Iran conflict drove diesel prices above $6 per gallon, significantly cutting into his income.
The money I earn from freight work now is about the same as making burgers at a fast-food restaurant.
Recently cash-strapped Fistican had to sell assets to raise funds. He could have liquidated his shares in Trump Media—the company has been losing hundreds of millions of dollars annually, yet its total market capitalization has long remained more than three times the value of the Bitcoin assets underlying his holdings, indicating severe overvaluation. However, stocks tied to Trump’s brand are not driven by discounted cash flow valuation logic; instead, their price movements are fueled more by supporters’ loyalty and speculative optimism that prices will rebound when the next hype cycle arrives.
Fistikan then sold his Ford F-150 pickup truck.
This is a microcosm of investing in Trump-related stocks. Festican originally hoped to buy a water-front home in Florida, but now he’s left with nothing but an overgrown vacant lot, a severely depleted investment account, and just enough cash to get by.