Eric Trump | |
---|---|
Born | Eric Frederick Trump January 6, 1984 New York City, U.S. |
Education | Georgetown University (BS) |
Occupations |
|
Years active | 2004–present |
Known for | Executive at the Trump Organization Former boardroom judge on The Apprentice |
Political party | Republican (2016–present) [1] Independent (2002–2016) [2] |
Spouse | |
Children | 2 |
Parents | |
Family | Trump family |
Website | erictrumpfoundation |
Eric Frederick Trump [3] (born January 6, 1984) [4] is an American businessman, activist, and former reality television presenter. He is the third child and second son of Donald Trump, the 45th president of the United States, and Ivana Trump.
Trump is a trustee and executive vice president of his father's business, the Trump Organization, running it alongside his older brother Donald Jr. [5] He also served as a boardroom judge on his father's TV show The Apprentice . During their father's presidency, the brothers continued to make new investments in foreign countries, as well as collect payments in their U.S. properties from foreign governments, despite having pledged not to do so. [6]
Eric Trump was born in New York City and attended Trinity School. [3] His parents divorced in 1990, when he was six years old. [7] As a boy, Trump spent his summers in the Czech countryside near Zlín with his maternal grandparents. His grandfather, Miloš Zelníček, who died in 1990, was an engineer; his grandmother, Maria, worked in a shoe factory. His grandfather taught Trump to hunt and fish. [8]
In 2002, Trump graduated from the Hill School. [9] He graduated with a degree in finance and management from Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. [10] [11]
Trump started accompanying his father to job sites and negotiations from a young age. He has said he mowed lawns, laid tiles, and did other work on his father's properties in his youth. Trump briefly considered other careers but decided to join the family business while a high school student. [11]
Trump is the Trump Organization's executive vice president of development and acquisitions. [11] He worked with his sister, Ivanka, to redesign and renovate Trump National Doral and its Blue Monster course in Miami, Florida. [12]
In 2013, Trump received Wine Enthusiast Magazine 's "Rising Star of the Year" Award. [13]
Amid the Trump–Ukraine scandal—where President Trump asked the Ukrainian president to investigate Joe Biden and his son, Hunter—Eric Trump strongly criticized Hunter, accusing him of nepotism. Eric claimed that, unlike Hunter, "When my father became president, our family stopped doing international business deals". But when Donald Trump became president, rather than place his assets in a blind trust, he made Eric a top executive in the family business, which continued to operate and promote business transactions across the world. [14] [15] [16] [17] [18] [19] PolitiFact and the Washington Post fact-checker rated Eric Trump's assertion that the Trump family "got out of all international business" false. [20] [21] PolitiFact noted that not only had the Trump family engaged in international business dealings since Trump became president, but that some of the president's children, including Eric, had openly celebrated their international business activities during that time. [20]
In 2017, it was reported that Eric Trump had said that "we don't rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia", and that "we've got some guys that really, really love golf, and they're really invested in our programmes. We just go there all the time." [22] In 2008, Trump said that "in terms of high-end product influx into the US, Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets", and that "we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia". [23] [24]
In October 2019, Eric Trump complained of the Bidens, "Why is it that every family goes into politics and enriches themselves?". Shortly before he made that statement, President Trump had decided that the G-7 summit would be held at the Trump Doral resort, owned by the Trump Organization. President Trump reversed his decision amid bipartisan condemnation. [25] [26]
A ruling which was handed down on February 16, 2024 barred Trump from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in New York, including the Trump Organization, for two years. [27]
Trump was a boardroom judge on his father's reality television series The Apprentice (2010–2015). He appeared in 23 episodes.[ citation needed ]
In 2007, Trump established the Eric Trump Foundation, a public charity to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee. [28] [29] On November 30, 2012, the foundation committed to raising $20 million over ten years for the naming rights to the new Eric Trump Foundation Surgery & ICU Center in the Kay Research and Care Center, a $198 million tower that opened on February 19, 2015, on the St. Jude campus. [30] [31]
St. Jude stated in 2013 that the 7th Annual Eric Trump Foundation Golf Invitational on September 9, 2013, at the Trump National Golf Club in Briarcliff, New York, had "... raised $1.5 million for the kids of St. Jude", for a total of $6 million since 2006. [32] On December 30, 2016, Richard C. Shadyac Jr., the president of the fundraising organization of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, wrote the Eric Trump Foundation a letter stating that the foundation and "... related efforts, such as an Eric Trump Foundation-affiliated team that participates in the New York City Marathon", had raised $16.3 million for the hospital since the charity's inception ten years earlier. [28]
On December 21, 2016, Trump announced that he would stop active fundraising for the Eric Trump Foundation as of December 31. The move came to avoid the appearance that donors were using him to gain access to his father after he won the presidential election. [33]
The foundation's 2016 tax return, filed under its alternative name the Curetivity Foundation, shows that the contributions it received increased from $1.8 million in 2015 to $3.2 million in 2016. The foundation gave $2,910,000 in donations to St. Jude and several smaller donations to other charities while paying a total of $145,000 to various for-profit properties the Trump family owned. [34] [35] [36]
In 2016, the fundraising president of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital stated that the Eric Trump Foundation had raised and donated $16.3 million to the hospital since the charity's foundation. [37]
In June 2017, Forbes reported that the Eric Trump Foundation shifted money intended to go to cancer patients to the Trumps' businesses. [38] [39] [40] [41] Eric Trump had asserted that his foundation got to use Trump Organization assets for free ("We get to use our assets 100% free of charge"), but that appears not to be true. [38] According to Forbes, more than $1.2 million of the donations went to the Trump Organization for the use of Trump's Westchester golf course, and "Golf charity experts say the listed expenses defy any reasonable cost justification for a one-day golf tournament". [38] According to a former foundation director, "We did have to cover the expenses. ...The charity had grown so much that the Trump Organization couldn't absorb all of those costs anymore." Forbes acknowledged that the charity has done a great deal of good, including an intensive-care unit that opened in 2015 at St. Jude and funding cancer research. [38] According to Trump, the Foundation's expense ratio is 12.6%, and "at no time did the Trump Organization profit in any way from the foundation or any of its activities". [42]
Forbes also reported that more than $500,000 of the money donated for cancer patients "was re-donated to other charities, many of which were connected to Trump family members or interests, including at least four groups that subsequently paid to hold golf tournaments at Trump courses". [38] According to Forbes, "All of this seems to defy federal tax rules and state laws that ban self-dealing and misleading donors. It also raises larger questions about the Trump family dynamics and whether Eric and his brother, Don Jr., can be truly independent of their father." [38] The foundation says that relevant donors were informed that donations would be redirected. [43]
The Eric Trump Foundation had advertised that its golf charity events raised money exclusively for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, with 95–100% of the money raised going toward the charity. Public tax records show that the foundation applied significant amounts of the funds raised to pay costs of the events to the Trump Organization for use of its facilities. [44] Additionally, the foundation donated to charitable causes other than St. Jude and made grants to several other charities, including at least three animal welfare organizations and the American Society for Enology and Viticulture, a California wine industry organization. [44]
Trump said in July 2016 that Donald Trump had made "hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal donations" to the Eric Trump Foundation in the past, but there is no evidence of that. When The Washington Post requested evidence, Trump appeared to backtrack and refused to give details. [45]
In June 2017, the New York State Attorney General's Office confirmed that it had begun an inquiry into the Eric Trump Foundation, based on issues the Forbes investigation raised. [46] [47] The investigation was reported as ongoing in December 2018. [48]
Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign was formally launched on June 16, 2015, at Trump Tower in New York City. Eric was a key advisor, fundraiser, and campaign surrogate during the campaign. He and his wife made campaign appearances in numerous states on his father's behalf. [49]
On August 2, 2016, in a television appearance on CBS This Morning , Trump was asked to comment on his father's controversial statement to USA Today the previous day in which he said that if his daughter were ever subjected to sexual harassment in the workplace, he hoped she would find another company to work for or switch careers. Trump said, "Ivanka is a strong, powerful woman; she wouldn't allow herself to be objected [recte subjected] to it". [50]
On May 28, 2024, an email was shown during defense closing arguments in Donald Trump's New York criminal trial which revealed that longtime Trump Organization comptroller Jeffrey McConnery, who was previously acknowledged to have organized Trump Sr.'s reimbursement payments to Michael Cohen following the hush honey payments Cohen made to Stormy Daniels, sought approval from both Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. [51] It has been acknowledged that Eric Trump had signed some of the reimbursement checks to Cohen as well. [52] [51] [53]
Trump has promoted several conspiracy theories. [54] [55]
In May 2020, Trump said on Fox News that stay-at-home orders to combat the spread of COVID-19 were a strategy by the Democrats and the Joe Biden campaign intended to prevent his father's reelection by depriving him of the ability to conduct large campaign rallies. Trump said that after election day, "Coronavirus will magically all of a sudden go away and disappear and everybody will be able to reopen". [56] [57]
In September 2020, Trump spread a false video that appeared to show Biden "being caught red-handed using a teleprompter" when he was not. [58] [59]
Following his father's electoral defeat Eric Trump has engaged in attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election, falsely calling the election result a "fraud" and threatening Republican lawmakers to overturn the result. [60] [61]
While ballots were being counted in the 2020 election, Trump made baseless claims intended to cast doubt on Pennsylvania's ballot-counting process. [62] He shared a fake video that purported to show Trump ballots being burned. [63] [64] [65]
On the day of the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, Trump spoke at the "Save America" rally alongside his wife Lara and Donald Trump Jr., among others. [66] Trump was later among those who advanced the conspiracy theory that people associated with antifa were responsible for the attack. [67]
On July 4, 2013, Trump became engaged to his longtime girlfriend Lara Lea Yunaska, an associate producer on the syndicated television news program Inside Edition . They married on November 8, 2014, at the Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida. [68] [69] The couple's first child, Eric "Luke" Trump, a son, was born in September 2017, [70] and their daughter, Carolina Dorothy, in August 2019. [71]
In April 2021, Trump and his wife acquired a $3.2 million home in Jupiter, Florida. [72] In March 2022, Trump joined other members of his family in switching his official residency from New York to Florida. [73]
Trump is an "avid outdoorsman" and big-game hunter. [74]
Ivana Marie Trump was a Czech-American businesswoman, socialite, and model. She lived in Canada in the 1970s, before relocating to the United States and marrying Donald Trump in 1977. She held key managerial positions in The Trump Organization, as vice president of interior design, CEO and president of Trump's Castle casino resort, and manager of the Plaza Hotel.
Mar-a-Lago is a resort and National Historic Landmark in Palm Beach, Florida. It spans 126 rooms and 62,500 sq ft (5,810 m2) built on 17 acres of land. Since 1985, it has been owned by former president Donald Trump, who now resides on the premises as an employee of the club.
Ivana Marie "Ivanka" Trump is an American businesswoman. She is the second child of Donald Trump and his first wife, Ivana. Trump was a senior advisor in his administration (2017–2021), and also was the director of the Office of Economic Initiatives and Entrepreneurship.
The Trump Organization is an American privately-owned conglomerate owned by Donald Trump. It serves as the holding company for all of Trump's business ventures and investments, with around 250 of its affiliates and subsidiaries using the Trump name. Donald Trump joined the organization in 1968, began leading it in 1971, renamed it around 1973, and handed off its leadership to his children in 2017 after he won the 2016 United States presidential election.
Pamela Jo Bondi is an American attorney, lobbyist, and politician. A Republican, she served as the 37th Florida attorney general from 2011 to 2019, the first woman elected to the office.
Donald John Trump is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Donald John Trump Jr., often called Don Jr., is an American businessman. He is the eldest child of former U.S. president Donald Trump and his first wife Ivana Trump.
William Albert Ackman is an American billionaire hedge fund manager who is the founder and chief executive officer of Pershing Square Capital Management, a hedge fund management company. His investment approach has made him an activist investor. As of June 2024, Ackman's net worth was estimated at $9.3 billion by Forbes.
Anthony Joseph Pratt is an Australian businessman. He is the executive chairman of Visy Industries, the world's largest privately owned packaging and paper company. Pratt is the heir to Richard Pratt, the former chair of Visy Industries and Leon Pratt, who co-founded the company in 1945.
Dustin Aaron Moskovitz is an American billionaire internet entrepreneur who co-founded Facebook, Inc. with Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum and Chris Hughes. In 2008, he left Facebook to co-found Asana with Justin Rosenstein. In March 2011, Forbes reported Moskovitz to be the youngest self-made billionaire in the world, on the basis of his then 2.34% share in Facebook. As of June 2024, his net worth is estimated at US$23 billion by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Trump National Golf Club Westchester is a private golf club in Briarcliff Manor, New York. The 140-acre (57 ha) course has eighteen holes, with a 75,000-square-foot (7,000 m2) clubhouse. Founded in 1922 as Briarcliff Country Club, it later operated as Briar Hills Country Club and Briar Hall Golf and Country Club. Donald Trump, the former president of the United States, purchased the property in 1996 and renamed the club after its county, Westchester, in a similar manner to his other golf properties. He had the clubhouse and course rebuilt for its 2002 reopening; the course was designed by Jim Fazio. Donald Trump served as president over Trump National Golf Club LLC from August 2000 until January 19, 2017, the day before his inauguration.
The Donald J. Trump Foundation was a New York-based tax-exempt private foundation formed in 1988 by Donald Trump and dissolved by court order in 2018 after various legal violations came to light.
The family of Donald Trump, 45th president of the United States (2017–2021) and owner of The Trump Organization, is an American family of German and Scottish descent. They are active in business, entertainment, politics, and real estate. Donald Trump, his third wife Melania, and their son Barron were the first family for the duration of his presidency. Trump's father Fred was the son of German immigrants, while his mother Mary Anne MacLeod was a Scottish immigrant. Trump has five children from three wives, and ten grandchildren.
Donald Trump began his career as a businessman at his father's real estate company, Trump Management, which he later renamed the Trump Organization. He expanded its business to Manhattan, where his father's financial and political backing enabled him to do his first deals, demolishing and renovating landmark buildings. After overextending himself and narrowly escaping personal bankruptcy in the late 1990s, Trump entered various businesses that did not require capital funding, including licensing his name to lodging and golf course enterprises around the world. Building on his public persona in the New York tabloid press, he later starred in the reality TV show The Apprentice.
Donald Trump grew up in Jamaica Estates, an affluent neighborhood in Queens, New York City. In 1971, Trump moved into a studio in Manhattan. From 1983 until 2019, Trump's primary residence was the three-level penthouse on the top floors of Trump Tower; in 2019, he declared Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, to be his primary residence. During his presidency from January 20, 2017, until January 20, 2021, Trump resided at the White House in Washington, D.C..
Donald Trump, a member of the Republican Party, unsuccessfully sought reelection in the 2020 United States presidential election. He was inaugurated as president of the United States on January 20, 2017, and filed for re-election with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on the same day.
Lara Lea Trump is an American former television producer who has co-chaired the Republican National Committee since March 2024. She is married to Eric Trump, the third child of former U.S. President Donald Trump. She was the producer and host of Trump Productions' Real News Update and a producer of Inside Edition.
During and after his term as President of the United States, Donald Trump made tens of thousands of false or misleading claims. The Washington Post's fact-checkers documented 30,573 false or misleading claims during his presidential term, an average of about 21 per day. The Toronto Star tallied 5,276 false claims from January 2017 to June 2019, an average of 6 per day. Commentators and fact-checkers have described the scale of Trump's mendacity as "unprecedented" in American politics, and the consistency of falsehoods a distinctive part of his business and political identities. Scholarly analysis of Trump's tweets found "significant evidence" of an intent to deceive.
The net worth of former president Donald Trump is not publicly known. Forbes has estimated his wealth for decades and estimates it at $4.5 billion as of August 2024, with Trump making much higher claims. Trump received gifts, loans, and inheritance from his father. His primary business has been real estate ventures, including hotels, casinos, and golf courses. He also made money from Trump-branded products including neckties, steaks, and urine tests. Money received through political fundraisers is used to pay for guest stays at properties owned by the Trump Organization and to pay his and his allies' lawyers.
A spokesperson for the Eric Trump Foundation, which was recently rebranded Curetivity, said the charity had been transparent—at least with some people. 'Relevant donors whose money was given to causes other than St. Jude were made aware the funds would be donated elsewhere,' the spokesperson wrote in an email to Forbes. 'All donations made via the website were given to St. Jude.'