Donald Trump is NOT happy with the Forbes estimate of his net worth
During an interview with CNBC, Donald Trump lashed out at Forbes over the magazine’s (apparently lowball) estimate of his total net worth.
Trump claims he is worth over $10 billion; the magazine, in a recent analysis, pegs the number at less than half that figure: $4.5 billion.
That article, provocatively headlined “Trump Exaggerating His Net Worth (By 100%) In Presidential Bid,” apparently did not sit well with the Donald.
After interviewer John Harwood mentioned Trump’s net worth, Trump said “OK” before asking where Harwood had heard that number.
“I’m a private company,” Trump told the financial reporter during an interview at (where else?) Trump Grill in Manhattan. “I like the people at Forbes, [but] they don’t really know my assets very well.”
The GOP frontrunner claimed that Forbes was understimating the value of the Trump brand, and also the value of secret “assets I have that they don’t even know” about, because he’s a private company and doesn’t have to disclose them.
When presented with Forbes estimate of his liquid assets ($325 million), he says he is not going to say how much cash that he has on hand, just “I have a lot of cash.” He asks Harwood if he agrees that it is a lot (of cash). Harwood nods and smiles.
“I mean, you know,” Trump says as the CNBC.com video ends.
During his meteoric ascent in the polls during these nascent days of the 2016 election, the question of Donald Trump’s actually worth has surfaced again and again. Using a host of available data, and estimates, a number of publications have tried to pin down an exact figure. In July, Bloomberg concluded the estimate was closer to $2.9 billion based on Trump’s own disclosure forms.
“They don’t know what they’re talking about,” Trump said in an interview with CNN.
Trump continued to act aggrieved and told The Daily Mail that Bloomberg only ran the story on Michael Bloomberg’s orders because he is jealous of Trump.
Earlier this month, Mother Jones estimated that Trump has lost between $1 and $6 billion throughout his business career.
In 2006, Trump sued financial writer Tim O’Brien for expressing skepticism about Trump’s true net worth in his book Trump Nation. An appeals court affirmed a lower court’s ruling to dismiss Trump’s lawsuit again O’Brien in 2011. It was revealed during a deposition that Trump feels that “his sense of financial worth depends on his feelings day-to-day.”
Watch the complete interview with Trump on CNBC.
David Matthews operates the Wayback Machine on Fusion.net—hop on. Got a tip? Email him: [email protected]