President Donald Trump earned millions of dollars last year from Hollywood companies, including an eight-figure sum associated with the Amazon MGM documentary film Melania; tens of millions of dollars in lawsuits that he settled with media giants; residuals from appearances in TV shows and films (including from ABC’s The View!) and a payment from his Screen Actors Guild Pension.
The numbers come from Trump’s annual financial disclosure, which was filed Tuesday evening and reviewed by The Hollywood Reporter.
Melania, which was released by Amazon MGM Studios in late January, has been a particularly hot-button topic of conversation, with questions swirling around how much the First Lady was compensated for the project.
The disclosure includes a license agreement for the film totaling $10.7 million, as well as a $521,000 payment associated with an accompanying memoir published by Skyhorse.
The filing also includes a receivable from Amazon MGM Studios of between $250,001-$500,000, though it is not immediately clear if that is associated with the Melania film, or if it is related to payments from reruns of The Apprentice, which Amazon MGM owns and licenses to markets around the world. In addition to the film, Melania director Brett Ratner is also said to have been filming a follow-up docuseries, which has not yet released. Amazon is said to have paid about $40 million for the right to the film.
The filing also pulls back the curtain on Trump’s stock and bond holdings, revealing hundreds of millions of dollars in equity and debt, including stakes in essentially every entertainment company, from Disney and Netflix to Paramount, Warner Bros. Discovery, Comcast and Fox.
“This disclosure once again demonstrates that The Trump Organization continues to maintain a strong financial position, supported by world class, valuable assets, substantial liquidity and a conservative balance sheet,” a spokesperson for The Trump Organization said in a statement. “Our debt remains incredibly low relative to the size and strength of our overall portfolio, reflecting an extremely underleveraged financial position. The breadth and depth of this filing further underscores our commitment to transparency. At nearly 1,000 pages, it represents one of the most comprehensive financial disclosure reports ever submitted and demonstrates a level of financial transparency unmatched in presidential history.”
Notably, the filing also suggests that Trump pledged to tender some of his shares in Warner Bros. Discovery to Paramount last year, as the Department of Justice was reviewing Netflix’s signed deal to acquire WBD, as well as Paramount’s competing offer.
The filing indicates that Trump intended to tender between $102,000-$280,000 worth of WBD shares, held in two different investment accounts. That is a relatively small portion of his total WBD holdings, which the filings indicate are valued at between $433,000 and $995,000.
Still, participating in the tender as his own government was reviewing the WBD deals underscores the inherent conflict that comes from trading stocks while running the country.
“Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said, adding comments about the President’s crypto efforts. “All actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people – and any so-called ‘reporters’ pushing otherwise are recycling the same, tired, false narrative that Democrats and the legacy media have been pushing for a decade.”
Trump was asked about his holdings in a gaggle next to Air Force One Wednesday morning, telling reporters that his investments are managed by outside funds.
“I never speak to any of the people that run the money, but they’re at big institutions, and they invest in whatever they invest,” he said.
Indeed, many money managers made their own decisions on whether to tender the WBD holdings they manage for clients. Mario Gabelli, a longtime media investor, told THR last year that he was leaning toward tendering a large portion of the WBD shares his funds manage.
Ultimately, of course, the tender was not needed, with Paramount Skydance ultimately raising its bid and forcing Netflix to drop out of the running for WBD.
The filing also includes all of the lawsuits that President Trump filed against media and technology companies, noting the $16 million settlement from ABC, the $16 million settlement from Paramount, the $24.5 million settlement from Meta, all of which are being pledged to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, as well as a $22 million settlement from YouTube, which is pledged to the Trust for the National Mall. There was also an $8 million settlement with X.
And it includes residuals from his myriad film and TV appearances over the years, including a de minimis payment from ABC for The View and other programs; a de minimis payment from Warner Bros. for appearances that include Suddenly Susan and Two Weeks Notice; a de minimis payment from Paramount for a Spin City appearance; a de minimis appearance from NBCUniversal for The Associate and The Little Rascals; and a payment of between $200-$1,000 from Entertainment Partners for appearances in Zoolander and Sex & The City.
Trump also continues to receive pensions from the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, with his SAG pension totaling $77,808, and his AFTRA pension totaling $8,724.
And the filing includes some gifts he received, including $50,000 worth of Super Bowl tickets from New Orleans Saints owner Gayle Benson, nearly $7,000 worth of UFC tickets from Dana White, U.S. Open tickets from Rolex valued at $25,000 as well as Yankees, World Cup and NASCAR tickets.
Source:
www.hollywoodreporter.com
