Of course, this is basically pennies compared to the money the president made last year. Yesterday, Trump filed his annual financial disclosure, and The Hollywood Reporter took the liberty of combing through it to find the money that came from the entertainment and media industry. Unsurprisingly, there was a lot of it. Perhaps the figure that had garnered the most attention was what Trump got from Melania, the documentary about the First Lady for which Amazon had reportedly paid $40 million and which grossed under $17 million at the box office. The disclosure reveals a $10.7 million licensing agreement for the doc, plus $521,000 for Melania’s memoir. There’s also a $250,001-$500,000 receivable from Amazon MGM, though THR is unsure whether or not that’s related to Melania; it could come from residuals from the reality show The Apprentice.
Speaking of residuals, Trump counted several de minimis payments from his appearances on The View, Suddenly Susan, Two Weeks Notice, Spin City, The Little Rascals, and The Associate; he also received between $200 and $1000 for appearances in Sex And The City and Zoolander. Again, this amount is negligible compared to his other dealings. There is about $86.5 million in settlements from media and tech companies, though those are mostly pledged to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation and the Trust For The National Mall. (An $8 million settlement from X isn’t specified as belonging to any particular foundation.) This still is peanuts compared to the nearly $1.2 billion he’s shown to have taken in from crypto businesses, per the Associated Press.
Perhaps most egregious is that the filing also indicates that the President intended to tender between $102,000-$280,000 worth of Warner Bros. Discovery shares to Paramount while his Department of Justice was reviewing Netflix’s and Paramount’s offers to take over WBD, according to THR. The tender was not ultimately needed—Paramount Skydance raised its bid and pushed Netflix out of the running—and Trump claims that his money manager operated independently without Trump’s knowledge on this front, which THR concedes wouldn’t be unusual. Still, a White House spokesperson added an absolutely hilarious statement: “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest.”
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