Former President Donald Trump responded Monday to being left off of The Forbes 400 list of the richest Americans, levying several false allegations against Forbes.
Key facts
- Trump blasted the “Fake Forbes 400” list in a post on his Truth Social platform, baselessly claiming Forbes is “China owned” and had “attacked” him by not putting him “high up” on the ranking of the 400 richest Americans.
- Forbes’ response: “Removed from The Forbes 400, Trump responds as he always has—by lying about his net worth and saying he should be higher on the list. We take extraordinary care in valuing his fortune, and our ownership—which does not include China’s wealth fund—plays no role in that effort. Twice a year, we publish a detailed breakdown of our work, offering a far more accurate portrayal of Trump’s personal balance sheet than the fictitious documents the Trump Organization has created over the years.”
News peg
The net worth of former president Trump dwindled from $3.2 billion to $2.6 billion between September 2022 and September 2023 due to declining value for his real estate holdings and stake in Truth Social. It took a $2.9 billion fortune to make this year’s Forbes 400.
Key background
Trump, with the help of associates such as Michael Cohen and Allen Weisselberg, has lied repeatedly to Forbes about the value of his assets in efforts to improve his placement on the publication’s deeply reported list of the wealthiest individuals in the world.
“It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes,” Cohen testified before Congress in 2019.
Trump’s estimated fortune peaked at $4.5 billion in 2015, though he claimed at the time he was worth more than $10 billion.
He first appeared on The Forbes 400 in 1982 with a $200 million fortune shared with his father, though the younger Trump claimed to be more than twice as rich as Forbes’ estimates even then.
This article was first published on forbes.com and all figures are in USD.
