TOPLINE Dozens of Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout on Monday, in an escalation of protests against CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s failure to act on President Trump’s “When the looting starts, the shooting starts” post.



KEY FACTS



<ul><li>Staff members flocked to rival platform Twitter for a second day, to denounce Zuckerberg’s “do-nothing” approach to Trump’s post that threatened violence toward George Floyd protesters.</li></ul>



<ul><li>One employee, Owen Anderson, announced in a&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/OwenResistor/status/1267568422327447552?s=20" target="_blank">tweet</a>&nbsp;that he had quit the company.</li></ul>



<ul><li>“To be clear, this was in the works for a while.&nbsp;But after last week, I am happy to no longer support policies and values I vehemently disagree with,” he wrote.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Employees have also been circulating messages internally, with one staffer writing on a staff message board: “The hateful rhetoric advocating violence against black demonstrators by the U.S. President does not warrant defense under the guise of freedom of expression,” the&nbsp;New York Times&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/technology/facebook-employee-protest-trump.html" target="_blank">reported</a>. Others urged Zuckerberg to take down Trump’s post.</li></ul>



<ul><li>Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said employees will not have the protest days taken out of their vacation allowance, Reuters&nbsp;<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-trump-employee-criticism/facebook-staffers-walk-out-saying-trumps-posts-should-be-reined-in-idUKKBN2382D0" target="_blank">reported</a>.</li></ul>



<ul><li>The walkout, staged virtually as all Facebook employees are working remotely in the pandemic,was triggered by Facebook&#8217;s refusal to take action over Trump&#8217;s inflammatory posts, while Twitter took the unprecedented step of flagging his comment for “glorifying violence.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>Zuckerberg has reportedly pushed the company’s weekly employee Q &amp; A session from Friday to Tuesday.</li></ul>



CRUCIAL COMMENT



In a joint statement, a number of the virtual demonstrators tweeted: “Facebook’s recent decision to not act on posts that incite violence ignores other options to keep our community safe. We implore the Facebook leadership to #TakeAction.”



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
https://twitter.com/dan_abramov/status/1267544361929256966?s=20
</div></figure>



TANGENT



Online therapy company Talkspace has cut ties with Facebook over the issue. CEO Oren Frank&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/orenfrank/status/1267504648275005440?s=20" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">tweeted</a>&nbsp;on Monday: “We at Talkspace discontinued our partnership discussions with Facebook today. We will not support a platform that incites violence, racism, and lies. #BlackLivesMatter.”



NEWS PEG



President Trump has driven a wedge between Facebook staff and the social network&#8217;s founder. Facebook&#8217;s no-leak culture, and the largely united front between management and staff had largely weathered previous storms in its march to &#8220;connect the world.” That accord was shattered in a flood of tweets condemning Zuckerberg&#8217;s decision to keep Trump&#8217;s post on the site. Before the walkout, several senior employees blasted Zuckerberg’s defence of keeping the post on the site. Design manager Jason Stirman tweeted on Monday: “I‘m a FB employee that completely disagrees with Mark’s decision to do nothing about Trump’s recent posts, which clearly incite violence. I’m not alone inside of FB. There isn’t a neutral position on racism.”



In a post on Monday, Zuckerberg said Trump’s post and use of the historically racially charged phrase did not breach Facebook policies. “Our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10111961824369871" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>.



KEY BACKGROUND



The death of George Floyd after white policeman Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for nearly nine minutes last Monday sparked outrage across the U.S. and subsequent protests in more than 75 cities. <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/01/corporate-donations-tracker-here-are-the-companies-giving-millions-to-anti-racism-efforts/#701eab0037dc">Companies</a>, facing public pressure to speak out, have released statements pledging support to the black community, including Amazon, Netflix, Twitter and Peloton. On Monday, Zuckerberg<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/2020/06/01/facebook-pledges-10-million-to-racial-justice-campaigns/#2c2f71374250"> announced</a> Facebook is donating $10 million to groups campaigning for racial justice.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/">Isabel Togoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

gettyimages-1176382466-594×594

Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Revolt Against Zuckerberg’s Inaction On Trump’s ‘Shooting’ Post

President Donald Trump’s <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/04/14/president-trump-putting-a-hold-on-funding-to-the-world-health-organization/#fb6a30f63ee6">announcement</a> that the U.S.—the largest sponsor of the World Health Organization—will halt payments to the body in the midst of a pandemic because of its “mismanagement” of the coronavirus crisis has been slammed by the U.N., global leaders and Bill Gates as “dangerous”. 



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">KEY FACTS</h2>



<ul><li>Trump <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattperez/2020/04/14/president-trump-putting-a-hold-on-funding-to-the-world-health-organization/#4964eb3d63ee">announced</a> he would hold payments in the midst of the coronavirus crisis, while a “review” is carried out to assess what he said was the WHO “severely mismanaging and covering up the spread of the coronavirus.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>In response, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2020-04-14/statement-the-secretary-general-the-world-health-organization" target="_blank">statement</a> that now is “not the time to reduce the resources for the operations of the World Health Organization or any other humanitarian organization in the fight against the virus.&#8221;</li></ul>



<ul><li>Microsoft founder Bill Gates, whose philanthropic Gates Foundation is one of the WHO’s <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.who.int/westernpacific/about/partnerships/donors" target="_blank">biggest</a> voluntary donors, <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1250292126643941376?s=20" target="_blank">criticised</a> the move as being “as dangerous as its sounds…the world needs WHO now more than ever.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>House speaker Nancy Pelosi blamed Trump “<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.speaker.gov/newsroom/41420-0" target="_blank">ignoring warnings</a>” about the pandemic for causing “unnecessary deaths.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>She tweeted: “Now more than ever, we need the truth. And the truth is that Donald Trump dismantled the infrastructure handed to him which was meant to plan for and overcome a pandemic, resulting in unnecessary deaths and economic disaster.”</li></ul>



<ul><li>World leaders have urged Trump to rethink the decision, with China calling for the U.S. to fulfill its obligations, Germany and New Zealand calling for unity, while Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison said the WHO was not immune from criticism.</li></ul>



<figure class="wp-block-embed-twitter wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter"><div class="wp-block-embed__wrapper">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">Halting funding for the World Health Organization during a world health crisis is as dangerous as it sounds. Their work is slowing the spread of COVID-19 and if that work is stopped no other organization can replace them. The world needs <a href="https://twitter.com/WHO?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@WHO</a> now more than ever.&mdash; Bill Gates (@BillGates) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillGates/status/1250292126643941376?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 15, 2020</a></blockquote><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
</div></figure>



Additional info: Trump’s decision comes as nearly 2 million people to date have contracted the coronavirus, 600,000 of them in the U.S., while 126,000 people have died.



Crucial comment: Guterres added: &#8220;Now is the time for unity and for the international community to work together in solidarity to stop this virus and its shattering consequences.&#8221;&nbsp;



The Geneva-headquartered body is the part of the U.N. in charge of global public health and has coordinated the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.&nbsp;



Big number: $400 million. That’s how much the U.S. contributed to the WHO budget in 2018-2019, the BBC <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52289056" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>. The U.S. makes up about 15% of payments to the WHO and is the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/04/08/which-countries-are-the-biggest-financial-contributors-to-the-world-health-organization-infographic/#57d07d0f494c">largest</a> financial contributor. The WHO is funded through membership payments from its 194 member states, as well as voluntary contributions.



Key background: Trump has threatened to pull out from funding the WHO in recent weeks, despite the U.S. becoming the centre of the global pandemic with the most cases and deaths. Trump accuses the body of being China-centric, declaring a pandemic late, and “opposing travel restrictions to China,” he said on Tuesday. But the WHO has also suggested that the U.S. largely failed to acknowledge the severity of the disease and its potential. The tension between the U.S. and the WHO is just one example of the struggle to implement a global response to the pandemic as individual states grapple with it in their own, unique and sometimes contradictory ways.



Tangent: Donald Trump is not the first U.S. President to defund a U.N. body but this tactic of withholding funds, or withdrawal, has become a hallmark of his administration. The U.S. will cease to be a member of the Paris Climate Agreement this year after Trump formally pulled the U.S. out in 2019, and he has also pulled out of the Iran Nuclear Deal and the UN Human Rights Council, among other agreements.



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/isabeltogoh/">Isabel Togoh</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/business">Business</a>

gettyimages-1218858840-594×594-1

‘Dangerous As It Sounds’: Bill Gates, World Leaders And U.N. Condemn Trump’s Decision To Halt WHO Funding

Topline:&nbsp;U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who is leading the Trump administration’s economic response to the coronavirus, said on Wednesday that a large stimulus package is unlikely to get rolled out this week, though he confirmed that the government was taking steps to help small businesses and workers, as well as provide federal aid to industries hard hit by the outbreak.



<ul><li>“The president very much wants to consider a stimulus bill, whether it is through a payroll tax or otherwise,” Mnuchin said during a House Appropriations subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. “We realize that may not get done this week, so we want to get done what we can do this week and we will come back.”</li><li>With Congress set to go into week-long recess on Thursday, lawmakers are scrambling to implement some measures of economic relief—since a larger stimulus package will likely require more time to win bipartisan support.</li><li>The Treasury Secretary, who has been meeting with top industry officials and lawmakers to coordinate a response, said that the government’s first priority is helping small businesses and employees to mitigate the economic pain inflicted by the coronavirus.</li><li>Mnuchin also confirmed an&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-treasury-likely-to-push-back-april-15-tax-filing-deadline-sources-11583897351?mod=hp_lead_pos6&amp;mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">earlier report</a>&nbsp;that the administration will push back the April 15 tax filing deadline, which could add some $200 billion of liquidity to the economy—extending the deadline would effectively act as a short-term loan to consumers and businesses.</li><li>“For small- and medium-size businesses, we think it’s appropriate for the government to pick up the costs,” he&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mnuchin-urges-congress-to-pass-stimulus-to-counter-coronavirus-impact-11583941954" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>, while also adding that the situation is “a little bit like a hurricane… we need to cover these outside-of-normal expenses.”</li><li>The administration is also considering&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mnuchin-urges-congress-to-pass-stimulus-to-counter-coronavirus-impact-11583941954" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">loan guarantees</a>&nbsp;to different industries affected by the outbreak, including airlines, hotels, and cruise operators—as well as relief for U.S. shale companies hit hard by the ongoing oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, though Mnuchin insisted that “these are not bailouts.”</li><li>Meanwhile, House Democrats plan to introduce a bill today on paid sick leave, unemployment insurance, food stamps and free coronavirus testing—with plans to vote on the legislation Thursday, before Congress goes into recess, the&nbsp;Wall Street Journal&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-democrats-to-unveil-coronavirus-response-measures-11583930749?mod=article_inline&amp;mod=article_inline" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reports</a>.</li></ul>



Crucial quote:&nbsp;“As I’ve said before, this is not a multi-year issue,” Mnuchin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/10/mnuchin-says-theres-bipartisan-interest-in-spending-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">told reporters</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday. “This is an issue that certain industries are going to be significantly impacted by and the President is very committed to make sure that we have the economic response appropriate for this economy.”



Key background:&nbsp;Nervous investors have anxiously been awaiting further details on the administration’s economic response to the fallout from the coronavirus since Trump promised “major” stimulus measures earlier this week. The stock market has seen&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/03/11/another-wild-day-on-wall-street-stocks-fall-as-investors-await-economic-response-to-coronavirus/#137e54a916d1">wild trading and volatility</a>&nbsp;in recent sessions, as coronavirus starts to have a bigger impact on U.S. businesses and economic activity. On Monday, stocks underwent a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahhansen/2020/03/09/stock-market-bloodbath-sp-dow-nasdaq-all-down-more-than-7-in-worst-drop-since-2008/#2b76a4d23041">historic sell-off</a>—where the Dow and S&amp;P fell almost 8% in their worst day since 2008. Both indexes&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/03/10/stocks-rally-dow-gains-more-than-1100-points-after-trump-promises-economic-response-to-coronavirus-fallout/">rose almost 5%</a>&nbsp;on Tuesday amid news of potential economic stimulus from the Trump administration, but&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/2020/03/11/another-wild-day-on-wall-street-stocks-fall-as-investors-await-economic-response-to-coronavirus/#137e54a916d1">fell again on Wednesday</a>&nbsp;following a lack of specific details and unclear timeline for the government’s response. Stocks accelerated their losses later in the day after the WHO finally declared coronavirus a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2020/03/11/world-health-organization-declares-coronavirus-a-global-pandemic/">global “pandemic.”</a>&nbsp;The Dow has now officially entered bear market territory, down 20% off its record highs, after falling almost 1,600 points—or 5.8%—on Wednesday. The S&amp;P 500 and Nasdaq both lost 5.2% and 4.9%, respectively.



Tangent:&nbsp;“We expect to pass bipartisan legislation very quickly—that&#8217;s the President’s number one priority,” Mnuchin&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2020/03/10/mnuchin-says-theres-bipartisan-interest-in-spending-deal.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">said</a>&nbsp;on Wednesday. “He [Trump] is also focused on a larger stimulus package, looking at a payroll tax cut and other alternatives as well.” The Treasury Secretary also mentioned that he had a “productive meeting” with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as the two continue with ongoing “discussions about various different policies” to respond to the coronavirus.



What to watch for: Trump will be making a statement later today, after meeting with top industry executives. 



&#8211;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/sergeiklebnikov/">Sergei Klebnikov</a>, Forbes Staff, <a href="https://www.forbes.com/markets">Markets</a>

gettyimages-1212011268-594×594

Here’s Everything We Know About The Trump Administration’s Economic Response To Coronavirus

When Donald Trump opened Trump Tower in 1983, it marked a seminal moment in American retail, as six stories of glitzy shops like Harry Winston and Cartier beckoned luxury buyers who strode past a live pianist and a 60-foot indoor waterfall. 



“We got the highest rents ever, anywhere,” says former Trump Organization executive Barbara Res, standing in the pink atrium four decades after she helped build it. 



Times have changed. Gazing around, almost all the tenants are now gone. The hollowing-out began years ago, but it has only gotten worse since Trump entered politics. Nike abandoned its attached flagship store earlier this year, and Ivanka Trump’s accessories business closed up shop as well. 



What’s left is basically nothing but Gucci, Starbucks and The Donald, wall-to-wall. Trump Bar sits atop Trump Grille, next to Trump Café, the Trump Store and Trump’s Ice Cream. It is unlikely Trump pays himself rent for any of them. “Things are all different now,” Res says.



That difference includes profits. Net operating income dropped 27% between 2014, the year before Trump announced his run for president, and 2017, his first year in the White House. 



When the real estate mogul descended the escalator to launch his campaign, in this very building, no one could have predicted the chain of events that would lead to this point. Even among those who gave his moon-shot presidential bid a chance of success, the assumption was that Trump would dump his assets before taking office. 



By refusing to divest, Trump raised an unprecedented question: How would the most divisive presidency in modern American history affect a company built on the president’s persona? Forbes has been working to answer that question since the moment Trump got elected, interviewing nearly 200 colleagues, partners and industry observers. 



While the experiment continues to unfold, in real time, the early results are in. Much as he’s trying—and he’s definitely trying—Donald Trump is not getting richer off the presidency. Just the opposite. His net worth, by our calculation, has dropped from $4.5 billion in 2015 to $3.1 billion the last two years, knocking the president 138 spots lower on the Forbes 400.



Three factors are at play. Much of that decline is due to deeper reporting, which revealed, for example, that the president had been lying about the size of his penthouse. Some of it is due to larger market forces. Trump owns commercial space at a time when e-commerce is decimating brick-and-mortar retail, shaving more than $100 million off his fortune—and no amount of bully-pulpit Amazon-bashing will change that. 



But the third factor comes from how Trump the president affects Trump the brand. Those familiar with him saw his 2016 run as a surreal marketing strategy, and Trump has said as much, telling Fortune way back in 2000, “It’s very possible that I could be the first presidential candidate to run and make money on it.” 



Since his unexpected ascent to the White House, Trump has tried to leverage the trappings of the presidency to benefit his commercial projects, from visits to his golf courses to hosting summits at Mar-a-Lago to launching a new hotel-licensing business aimed at his voters. (The Trump Organization denies the licensing business has to do with politics.)



“My father made a tremendous sacrifice when he left a company that he spent his entire life building to go into politics,” counters Eric Trump, who now comanages the Trump Organization on behalf of the president, in a statement to Forbes. 



“Everything he does is for the good of the American people—he has zero involvement in the Trump Organization and quite frankly to suggest otherwise is outrageous.” (Eric Trump himself, however, told Forbes shortly after the inauguration that he would provide the president bottom-line updates “probably quarterly.”)



Either way, Trump’s mixture of politics and business has proved to be a net loser for him so far. In further polarizing the country, he has also further polarized his business—to the tune of an estimated $200 million hit against his net worth. Understanding how that has happened offers a fresh window into the state of Trump Inc.—and Trump’s America.



In May 2016, a dozen or so golf course appraisers settled in at Trump National Doral, the president’s 643-room Miami mega-resort, for a few days of seminars and golf. At the time, Trump was steamrolling through the Republican primaries while bashing Mexicans, Muslims and even the pope. So it was no surprise when, inside his resort, the conversation turned to how the tumult was affecting Trump’s golf businesses.



A top Doral executive, of all people, was willing to provide an answer. According to three witnesses, he told the room of appraisers that business at the resort—whose revenues were as big as Trump’s ten other U.S. golf courses combined—was suffering because of the campaign. 



Historically, Doral had drawn much of its clientele from the Northeast, where Trump was and is especially unpopular. “At the time there was a lot of talk about comments that Trump had made,” says Jeff Dugas, who attended the event. “Nobody was extremely surprised.”



Big names like Nascar and the PGA Tour also pulled business from the club. After Trump won the election, Doral lost 100,000 booked room nights, according to someone who knows the resort’s business. While revenues for the Miami luxury hotel market jumped 4% overall in 2017 according to the data analytics firm STR, Doral’s revenues fell by an estimated 16%. 



And that was before a deranged gunman wandered into the lobby earlier this year, draped an American flag over the front desk and began shooting at the chandeliers before he was apprehended by ­police.



Overall, revenue at the president’s U.S. golf properties fell by an estimated 9% in 2017. It goes beyond politics—guests now endure metal detectors and bomb-sniffing dogs. “It’s not a country club experience,” a source familiar with Trump’s golf business says. “It was captivating at first, but it has become tiresome.” Not even the chance to rub shoulders with a sitting president can overcome this problem: Revenues appear to be down at the three courses Trump visits most often.



A similar scenario has played out in Trump’s traditional wheelhouse: luxury residential real estate. The president still holds roughly 500 condos, co-ops and mansions, all with their own complications, in terms of both hassles and branding. He has 37 units worth an estimated $215 million in midtown Manhattan. 



Prices for condos in Trump Tower have fallen every year since 2015, when Trump declared his candidacy, and are an estimated 33% below their highs. Similar trends are playing out a few blocks away at Trump Parc East, where prices are down 23%, and at Trump Park Avenue, where they have dropped 19%.



In Chicago, values of Trump condos have crept downward, the opposite direction of the overall market. “People bought into the building based on the brand being synonymous with luxury,” says Cyndy Salgado, a real estate broker who once worked for the Trump Organization, selling condos in the Chicago tower. 



“Now many people feel that the brand represents divisiveness, embarrassment and questionable morals.” All told, the shift in perception has erased an estimated $50 million from the value of his residential units in Chicago and New York.



On the Caribbean island of St. Martin, Mario Molinari, a real estate agent, recalls trying to show a Chinese billionaire a villa a few months ago. The seller, he says, was Donald Trump, who was offering 11 bedrooms, an outdoor bar and a private tennis court for $16.9 million. 



But when they got to the gate, the president’s property manager told them they needed background checks to go inside, which typically take a couple of days to process. “It’s too small for me,” the billionaire responded, miffed. More than a year after the place went on the market, Trump still hasn’t sold it.



Such weakness seems to have infected the Trump brand across the board. After multiple bankruptcies, Trump adroitly turned his business toward real estate management and licensing, slapping his name on other people’s buildings, ties, steaks and even a urine test—allowing him to make money while others take all the financial risk. 



But partners at three Trump-branded hotels (Toronto, Panama, New York City’s SoHo) have taken the president’s name off their projects, which helps explain why politics has dragged that segment of the Trump hotel empire down about $30 million, by Forbes’ estimates. Meanwhile, many of his licensing customers, including Macy’s and the mattress-maker Serta, fled in the early days of his abrasive campaign—and the president’s company doesn’t seem to have landed a single new deal since. 



In 2015, Forbes valued Trump’s product-licensing operation at $23 million. It’s now down to a mere $3 million. “He’s so polarizing that people are afraid to do business with him,” says Jeff Lotman, who runs the licensing company Global Icons. “He has significantly tarnished the brand.”



Headaches in the luxury market could, in theory, be offset by Trump’s newfound popularity with the larger, less affluent MAGA set. Four months after their father took office, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. announced a new business venture to bring lower-priced Trump brands to hotels in Middle America. 



Filings released months later indicate that the majority owner of this venture is none other than the president himself, with a 77% stake, positioning Trump to profit from his political stardom. 



But not much has come of it. The Trumps signed deals to brand four hotels in Mississippi, but those agreements generated only $27,000 last year. They told reporters there were as many as 35 other deals in the works—none of them have panned out so far. 



Trump’s business has some bright spots. A few blocks from the White House, at the Trump International Hotel, Trump fans hobnob with cable news stars and Cabinet secretaries. The place turned a $2 million profit in the first four months of 2017, far exceeding the Trump Organization’s expectations. A chunk of that money comes from various GOP organizations, which have pumped more than $1.3 million into the hotel since it opened in fall 2016, according to Federal Election Commission data. 



Despite what seems a violation of the Constitution’s emoluments clause, designed to keep presidents free from foreign financial interest, the governments of other nations are welcome too. Everyone from Kuwaiti officials to the prime minister of Malaysia has reportedly spent money there. And lobbyists working for Saudi Arabia disclosed that they ran up a $270,000 tab in just six months.



In terms of condo sales, Trump sold one in New York to a woman named Angela Chen, just a month after he took office. Chen paid $15.9 million, $1.8 million more than her downstairs neighbor shelled out for a similar apartment a year earlier. 



The deal sparked conflict-of-interest concerns because Chen is apparently the head of a business called Global Alliance Associates, which claims to use its network with the “highest levels of government officials” to help companies expand into China.



Presidential provenance is also proving lucrative. After Trump made Mar-a-Lago world famous, the club is said to have doubled its initiation fee to $200,000. Fallout from the president’s response to the deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville reportedly prompted roughly 20 organizations to yank events from the club, likely costing Trump over $1 million in revenue. Nevertheless, Forbes estimates, Mar-a-Lago is now worth $160 million—$10 million more than it was before it became the winter White House.



The same goes for the president’s penthouse in Trump Tower. Although declining prices in the building have likely hurt its value, the 11,000-square-foot apartment became a historic landmark the moment Trump won the presidency. Forbes figures the election could have added $10 million to any potential deal.



This phenomenon also extends to the value of Trump’s Boeing 757, which became a backdrop for his campaign rallies. Some plane brokers think it could be worth double the roughly $20 million it would fetch if anyone else owned it (Forbes estimates a more conservative $6 million presidential premium). Eric Roth, who customized the interior of the plane for Trump, says, “What’s a baseball worth? About $3. What about if Babe Ruth signed it? It’s not $3 anymore.”



Some of the presidential profiteering appears more direct: On the day he assumed office, Trump took the unusual step of immediately launching his reelection campaign. 



Donor money kept flowing, and Trump’s companies have kept charging rent to the campaign. The result: America’s first billionaire president has turned more than $900,000 of donations into revenue for himself, without putting up a dime.



As long as he’s president—and refuses to divest his business holdings—Donald Trump will be able to boost his fortune in ways no other businessman can. Three days before Christmas last year, Trump sat in the Oval Office to sign the most significant tax reform legislation in decades. “This is something I’m very proud of,” he said, clutching a black marker. “Great for our country, great for the American people.”



Great as well for Donald Trump. The president famously refused to release his tax returns, but the new bill clearly benefits him. A Forbes analysis shows that Trump could save about 10% on business income. Based on Trump’s 2005 tax return, which leaked shortly after the real estate mogul took office, that could mean as much as $11 million annually. 



Other policies, which went into effect with far less fanfare, may also bolster his fortune. Take tariffs. Higher steel and aluminum prices make it more expensive for developers to build. For someone like Trump, who owns buildings but hasn’t done much construction recently, that ­raises the barrier to entry for competitors. 



His immigration policies, which appear to be raising the cost of construction labor, could have a similar effect. Those two factors are “very favorable to a guy who owns hard assets,” says Dave Rodgers, a real estate analyst at financial firm Baird. 



And while Trump promised not to do any new foreign deals while in office, cutting off a source of growth, opportunities will be waiting once his presidency ends. In the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Kazakhstan, Trump’s ex-business partners felt empowered to move ahead with potential projects, making it clear they are prepared to pay him down the road. 



“The tower will be ready for the Trump mark,” the president’s former partner in Georgia told Forbes last year, “if the Trump mark is ready to come back to the tower.” And Trump has not forgotten about his business: He asked about the Georgia project in a meeting with the country’s prime minister last year, according to the partners. 



For now, though, Trump’s presidency remains a net loser for him, which seems ironic. In not divesting, he set himself up so that his actions, and those of people who engage with his businesses, present perpetual conflicts of interest—or the appearance of them. 



Meanwhile, if he’d liquidated, paid capital gains tax on his entire fortune and created a blind trust to invest it all in the booming stock market, Trump would be $500 million richer than he is today—without the headaches.

How Trump Is Trying—And Failing—To Get Rich Off His Presidency

South Africa’s land expropriation without compensation intentions have caught the attention of United States President Donald Trump.

Trump tweeted on Thursday morning.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
I have asked Secretary of State <a href="https://twitter.com/SecPompeo?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@SecPompeo</a> to closely study the South Africa land and farm seizures and expropriations and the large scale killing of farmers. “South African Government is now seizing land from white farmers.” <a href="https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@TuckerCarlson</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/FoxNews?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FoxNews</a>
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1032454567152246785?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 23, 2018</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
A News report by Fox News stated that South Africa has began seizing land &#8220;from it&#8217;s own citizens because they are the wrong skin color&#8221;.
<iframe loading="lazy" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EThwj4NtnvU" width="651" height="366" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe>
This follows after SA’s President Cyril Ramaphosa had a Q&amp;A on land expropriation in Parliament on Wednesday, and just over a month after land hearings began around the country.
Trump’s comments sent the rand 1.87% lower to the dollar to 14.42 as fears spooked investors that sanctions could be imposed on South Africa.
&#8211; Shared Content

Tag: Trump

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook Employees Stage Virtual Revolt Against Zuckerberg’s Inaction On Trump’s ‘Shooting’ Post

‘Dangerous As It Sounds’: Bill Gates, World Leaders And U.N. Condemn Trump’s Decision To Halt WHO Funding

Here’s Everything We Know About The Trump Administration’s Economic Response To Coronavirus

How Trump Is Trying—And Failing—To Get Rich Off His Presidency

US President attacks SA’s land expropriation intentions, rand slides