Donald Trump, who announced his candidacy for the U.S. presidency Tuesday, is rich. Exactly how rich has been the subject of decades of debate and even a lawsuit.
“The real number is $10 billion,” Trump told Bloomberg at a June 3 meeting in his Fifth Avenue office, leaning over his paper-strewn desk. Or is it $8.7 billion, as stated in a document Trump published in conjunction with his announcement? Even at the lower figure, that would make him the 54th richest person in the U.S., according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
A billion here; a billion there. The fact that estimates of Trump's fortune can vary that widely underscores how hard it is to determine just how much he's worth. His own assessment for the Trump brand name, which is stamped on hotels, neckwear, cologne and bottled water and allows him to collect licensing fees, is in the billions. Trump is bullish on Trump futures.
“Ninety-nine million views,” he said, knocking over an employee’s computer monitor as he pointed to a YouTube video of rapper Mac Miller’s platinum-certified track, “Donald Trump,” playing on it. “Now that’s a brand.”
Unlike some other candidates, Trump has never filled out the personal financial disclosure form before. It could be fall before he files, if he applies for routinely granted deadline extensions.
As a celebrity property developer and promoter, Trump has no peers. He tends to describe all of his assets in superlatives: the greatest building, the finest golf course, the best locations. He also doesn’t publicly delineate between what he owns outright and properties he manages, making components of his fortune hard to pin down.Gucci Store
Most of his signature property, Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue in New York, is comprised of condominium units and common elements—hallways, elevators—that have been sold and no longer hold value for Trump.
He owns the rights to the building’s commercial spaces, including twelve floors of offices and a three-story Gucci store at the building’s base. Those spaces are valued at about $400 million, according to data compiled by Bloomberg using estimates of revenue, profit and capitalization rates.
He also owns the building’s 30,000 square-foot penthouse apartment. While the home could fetch a premium for its size and location, a buyer would probably want to renovate the gilded space.
Trump took out a $100 million mortgage on the tower in 2012, according to New York City property records.Murky Exercise