The coronavirus outbreak costs President Donald Trump’s businesses $1 million every day, and has lowered his net worth by $1 billion, according to analysts from various financial news outlets.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that the Trump Organization, which is heavily invested in real estate, hospitality, and leisure, is losing money because of coronavirus (original links):
The coronavirus outbreak is costing Trump Organization properties more than a million dollars in lost revenue daily and may have hurt the firm’s chances of earning a record price on the sale of its Washington hotel, according to an analysis of industry data and people familiar with the deal talks.
The majority of revenues for President Trump’s family business comes from travel and leisure, which have been hit hard by the forced closures and economic downturn caused by the pandemic. The situation could worsen because golf accounts for about half of the roughly $440 million of income Mr. Trump reported in his latest government financial disclosure.
Also on Thursday, Forbes explained:
To approximate how much the coronavirus affected the president’s fortune, we looked at changes in the price of stocks similar to each segment of his business. Commercial real estate was clearly down, with shares of several companies, including Boston Properties and Vornado Realty Trust, plunging an average of 37% from March 1, 2020, to March 18, 2020, the date we calculated fortunes for the billionaires list. Similar decreases dragged down the value of hospitality companies, apartment owners and golf businesses. Using those declines as a guide, we applied discounts to Trump’s precoronavirus numbers, then reviewed the changes with industry experts.
The bottom line: a net worth valuation of $2.1 billion—a drop of $1 billion in less than a month.
The president does not take a salary, and donated last quarter’s salary to the Department of Health and Human Services to assist its effort in the fight against the outbreak.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.