It was one of the greatest upsets in history when Donald Trump succeeded in winning the top political job in the United States. The New York billionaire took the presidency in a hard-fought battle against Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton. However, Forbes has disclosed that Trump’s financial status hasn’t performed so well. Every year, Forbes publishes a list of world billionaires and in the 30th anniversary edition, it has estimates that the fortunes of the president have taken a hit in the past year. Yes, Donald Trump’s net worth has declined by $1 billion to reach $3.5 billion. While he hasn’t released his tax returns as yet, he claimed during his election campaign that he was worth more than $10 billion.
Forbes said that since the election in November in which he claimed the White House, President Donald Trump net worth has declined by $200 million. In the list of worldwide billionaires, Mr. Trump has now slid down to the 544th position, which is a decline of 220 positions. According to the publication, much of his slide is due to a reduction in the real estate values in midtown Manhattan. Forbes said that most of his fortune is connected to Trump Tower and other properties near it.
Even though Trump’s fortune has declined, there has been a 16% increase in the fortunes of an average billionaire since the last edition of the rich list was published. This increase is partly due to what has been defined as the ‘Trump bump’, which is the rally in stocks that occurred after the elections. Market indexes managed to reach record highs and even the Dow Jones industrial average succeeded in going past the 20,000 point plateau. It was pointed out by Forbes that Trump may have been unable to benefit from the rally in the stock market because he announced during his election campaign that he had sold all of his stock holdings.
Another important reason behind the rise of fortunes of some other billionaires on the Forbes list are the rising oil prices. Nonetheless, when it comes to the President’s financial situation, not all the news is bad. Midtown Manhattan is getting back on its feet again and there has been an increase worth $25 million in his retreat in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. Furthermore, due to an improvement seen in the hotel market as a whole, the value of his licensing and hotel management business has also gone up by an estimated $97 million.
As a while, the number of billionaires on Forbes list grew from 233 to reach 2,043. For the fourth consecutive year, Bill Gates is on top. In fact, it is estimated that there was an increase in his fortune, which is now $86 billion as opposed to $75 billion last year. US investor Warren Buffet is second on the list with his fortune increasing to $75.6 billion as compared to $60.8 billion last year. But, the biggest monetary increase was for Amazon’s Jeff Bezos whose fortune reached $72.8 billion from $27.6 billion.