Trump’s brokers bought at least $10 million in defense stocks last year

The president’s portfolio kept accumulating shares in companies — like Palantir and Lockheed Martin — that were benefiting directly from his global military escalations

Julian Cooper – Responsible statecraft:

Brokers representing President Donald Trump purchased between $9.7 million and $24.3 million in stocks from a dozen arms manufacturers and other Pentagon contractors in 2025, including Palantir, Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics, according to an RS analysis of a new financial disclosure released by the president last week.

The disclosure comes as the Trump administration launches new strikes on Iran, oversees a historic weapons stockpiling effort at home, and calls for a $1.5 trillion defense budget, all of which benefit many of the companies in which he has invested.

Trump’s brokerage firms are prohibited from accepting trade requests from the president and his family. However, he has not put his assets into a blind trust, meaning Trump could know what stocks he owns and influence policy to benefit those companies. His income quadrupled from 2024 to 2025, his first year in office.

According to the filing, Trump’s brokers purchased between $1.6 and $3.9 million in stock of Palantir, the surveillance technology company that developed Maven Smart System, the AI system used to strike 1,000 targets in Iran in the first 24 hours of the war. Palantir has been a key beneficiary of the Trump administration’s embrace of artificial intelligence, earning a $10 billion contract last year to handle the Army’s “software and data needs” for the foreseeable future.

The president also acquired up to $3 million in stock from GE Aerospace, which manufactures parts for a wide variety of aircraft used by the U.S. and Israel in their attacks on Iran; up to $1.4 million in stock from Lockheed Martin, which manufactures F-35 and F-22 jets deployed against Iran; up to $1 million in stock from General Dynamics, which manufactures heavy bombs and missiles used in attacks on Iran; and more than $800,000 in stock from RTX, which manufacturers the Tomahawk missiles used in the strike that killed more than 120 schoolgirls in Iran.

Many of these companies have received large contracts to rebuild stockpiles of weapons that were depleted during the war against Iran that was launched February 28. A few weeks into the war, the Pentagon requested to shift $373 million in previously approved funding to buy 23 new Standard Missile-3 IB interceptors from RTX. After Iran successfully destroyed several U.S. THAAD radar systems across the Middle East, Lockheed Martin was awarded a $35 billion contract to quadruple production.

Some contractors in Trump’s investment portfolio also do business directly with Israel. Boeing — a prime military contractor from which Trump purchased more than $700,000 worth of stock in 2025 — sold $8.6 billion in F-15 jets to Israel less than three months before the joint U.S.-Israeli attack on Iran.

The disclosure revealed that Trump’s team invested more than $1.2 million in both Kratos Defense and Honeywell, and more than $200,000 a piece in Howmet Aerospace and in L3Harris. Trump also acquired more than $800,000 worth of stock in TransDigm, an aerospace manufacturing company that the Pentagon’s Inspector General revealed in a 2021 report was engaged in price-gouging, in one case for 9,400% in excess profit for a metal pin.

All of these stock purchases were part of a larger financial disclosure which revealed that Trump generated $2 billion through private ventures last year, including approximately $1.4 billion through cryptocurrency sales.

The filing also raises questions of foreign influence over the Trump administration. The president profited $799 million last year from World Liberty Financial — a joint cryptocurrency venture between the families of Trump and his top Middle East and Russia/Ukraine envoy Steve Witkoff — which is backed by the United Arab Emirates. Sheikh Tahoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, brother of both the Emirati president and foreign minister, invested $500 million in World Liberty Financial just days before Trump’s 2025 inauguration. Later that spring, Tahnoon’s firms invested $2 billion into cryptocurrency platform Binance using “USD1,” the coin issued by World Liberty Financial and the proprietary cryptocurrency of the Trump family.

In an April report, Public Citizen warned that the UAE’s investment in the Trump fund “creates a massive conflict of interest for the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.” The UAE has consistently warned against U.S. diplomatic engagement with Tehran, even participating in dozens of strikes against Iran as it aligns itself closer with Israel. The Wall Street Journal reported that the Emirati royal family’s investments in World Liberty Financial may have been linked to gaining access to valuable U.S. microchips.

“So we’re all profiting. I’m profiting because I have a lot of money and a lot of cash, and I give it to institutions,” said Trump, in response to questions about his financial disclosure. “I don’t know if they know what they’re doing or not, but they buy a vast array of things.”

Trump himself has reversed his position on whether these exchanges represent a conflict of interest. When asked about his conflicts of interest last year by The Guardian, White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said “there are no conflicts of interest.”

In an interview with the New York Times earlier this year, Trump changed his tune. “I found out that nobody cared,” Trump said.