Trump discloses over 1,000 new stock trades as Democrats highlight his profitable oil sector holdings

Trump discloses over 1,000 new stock trades as Democrats highlight his profitable oil sector holdings

Ben Werschkul · Washington Correspondent

Tue, August 25, 2026 at 6:52 PM GMT+3 4 min read

President Trump made over 1,000 equity trades in June, according to a newly released ethics disclosure, shrugging off political pressure over stock trading profits as the midterm elections approach.

A separate analysis from Democratic lawmakers additionally found that Trump's personal investments in oil and gas stocks have been paying off in 2026, with assets that have likely yielded millions in profits.

The ethics disclosure also underscored that Trump has shown little interest in reining in trading done under his name, with an average of over 30 trades a day in June, totaling between $78 million and $263 million in transactions.

It was the latest in a series of eyebrow-raising transactions that stretch back to Trump's inauguration but have accelerated in 2026, with a velocity of trading that has drawn intense criticism, even as the president says neither he nor his family makes the investment decisions themselves.

The report covers the month when SpaceX (SPCX) went public and shows the president made an investment on June 23 of between $15,000 and $50,000 in Elon Musk's company as he joined others in Washington getting in on the IPO.

The president also continued trading in Musk's Tesla (TSLA), as well as other "Magnificent Seven" stocks, with three purchases of the EV maker in June totaling between $130,000 and $350,000 and one sale of between $100,000 and $250,000.

A growing portfolio in oil and gas

Meanwhile, the new analysis from Democrats on Congress's Joint Economic Committee zeroed in on the politically fraught topic of oil and gas stocks.

The analysis concluded that, at the end of 2025, Trump held as much $45.6 million in oil and gas stocks — assets that could now be worth up to $61.1 million as high gas prices tied to the war in Iran have driven up many energy sector stocks.

In the first three months of 2026 — the period when the war in Iran began — Trump bought up to $3.6 million in additional oil and gas stocks as his portfolio grew, the analysis also found.

"President Trump continues to get richer from an illegal war that he started and refuses to resolve, while Americans pay the price for his actions," Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, the Joint Economic Committee's top Democrat, said in a summary of the findings.

Government ethics disclosures only require that transactions be disclosed in broad ranges, so the precise makeup of oil stocks in Trump's portfolio (and the ensuing profits) could be lower. But the report nonetheless underscores a possible political vulnerability for the president as prices at US pumps remain above $4 a gallon and at historically high levels for this time of year.

Trump's accounts are managed by his company, the Trump Organization, which has said for months that trades are made without any input from Trump or his family.

The Trump Organization didn't directly respond to questions from Yahoo Finance about the Democratic report and Trump's energy portfolio and profits. A spokesperson said in a statement, "the President's investment holdings are maintained exclusively in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions."

"Those institutions, not the President, have sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions," the statement added.

Democrats, for their part, appear eager to make his stock trading into a midterm election issue.

"He golfs and he trades stocks; he doesn't want to do the job," Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff recently charged in a speech in one of countless examples.

June's disclosures continue a pattern of high-velocity trading throughout 2026, and include prominent names from Nvidia (NVDA) to Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A) to Apple (AAPL) to Goldman Sachs (GS) to McDonald's (MCD).

Trump also continued a months-long trend of investing in companies he has a history of criticizing, with trades in JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Netflix (NFLX), and the Walt Disney Company (DIS).

A series of trades from the president in Palantir (PLTR) in June have also raised eyebrows and showed four transactions in the major government contractor in the days around the mid-June announcement of a peace deal with Iran.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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