Plus: All The President’s Neighbors: Here Are The Billionaires & Celebrities Who Live Near Mar-A-Lago |
Good morning,
Later today, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States—becoming just the second person in U.S. history to serve non-consecutive terms in the White House.In this special Inauguration Day edition of Forbes Daily, we’ll outline what readers need to know in terms of Wall Street’s expectations of Trump, the president-elect’s policy positions on key issues, and just what an “External Revenue Service” would do. We’ll be back in your inbox tomorrow with our usual format, including a rundown of Trump’s first day back in office.
Let’s get into the headlines, |
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| After making dozens of promises on the campaign trail, President-elect Donald Trump is planning to issue more than 100 executive orders when he takes office, according to AP—with approximately 25 of those expected on his first day alone, Reuters reported. TikTok, which shut down late Saturday evening, immigration, birthright citizenship and tariffs are just a few topics Trump has said will see movement on “day one.” China’s Vice President Han Zheng met with Elon Musk and other business leaders in Washington D.C. Sunday, according to Chinese state media reports, welcoming U.S. firms, including Tesla, to “seize opportunities and share the fruits of China's development.” China accounted for nearly a quarter ($5.7 billion) of Tesla’s revenue in the third quarter of 2024. |
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| | | All The President’s Neighbors: Here Are The Billionaires & Celebrities Who Live Near Mar-A-Lago |
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| At the dawn of Trump 2.0, Palm Beach is once again the center of America’s political universe. Palm Beach, Florida, has been a haven for America’s richest since Standard Oil tycoon Henry Flagler built the Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s and built the iconic Breakers hotel. The exclusive town—full-time population: 9,200—has seduced an array of notables including the Vanderbilts, the Kennedys and Sylvester Stallone with its heady mix of sunshine, sand and low taxes. There are fewer than 2,500 homes in town, only a fraction with a coveted ocean view. Scores of top donors have homes on this ritzy, 16-mile stretch of Florida coast, as well as Donald Trump pals both old (former U.K. ambassador and NY Jets co-owner Woody Johnson, ex-commerce secretary Wilbur Ross) and new. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to oversee Medicare and Medicaid, has a house in the area. So does John Phelan (nominee for Navy secretary) and Todd Blanche (deputy attorney general). Inventory is tight. With Trump expected to once again jet into town to spend weekends at his “Winter White House,” everyone from administration hopefuls and the U.S. Secret Service to the apolitical rich are flooding the market,. helping push the average price of a single-family home up 38% year-over-year, according to The Corcoran Group. “The day after the election,” says realtor Dana Koch, “it was like someone turned on a faucet.” In all, Forbes found at least 50 billionaires and celebrities, worth a combined $500 billion, who keep a home (or home away from home) in Trump’s neighborhood. |
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| “They’re flocking to the president,” says Mar-a-Lago member Hilary Musser, who recently listed a nearby 10,000-square-foot mansion—with a second-story pool and “Ferrari leather” closets—for $36 million. Adds realtor Christian Angle: “There’s been an absolute sense of euphoria.” |
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| Wall Street is hungry for a more business-friendly administration than it saw with Joe Biden. Under Democratic leadership, a strict regulatory environment with an aggressive antitrust approach slowed down major acquisitions. But as Forbes’ Sergei Klebnikov and John Dobosz reported in November, dealmakers and corporate lenders are expecting Trump’s term to usher in a new era of merger and acquisition activity, and we identified 20 mid-cap stocks that could be in the sweet spot for potential acquirers. Having a president who still receives royalty payments for a 1987 book titled The Art of the Deal naturally raises expectations that this is a leader who can, well, get a deal done. Trump has delivered on that front since Election Day, with Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank announcing in December that it aims to invest $100 billion in U.S. projects over the next four years, while Dubai-based real estate mogul Hussain Sajwani promised a $20 billion investment in U.S. data centers earlier this month. |
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| WEALTH + ENTREPRENEURSHIP |
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| The richest president in American history didn’t stop raking in the money between his two terms as commander in chief. In fact, Trump earned an estimated $218 million in operating income in 2023, roughly double what he made during the last year of his first term, Dan Alexander wrote in October. Driving the president’s profits are his golf clubs and Mar-a-Lago, which made up about 84% of Trump’s jump in income. On top of that, Trump made money the same way other former presidents do—earning an estimated $5 million from selling books and delivering speeches in 2023 alone. |
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| In a post on Truth Social last week, Trump proposed the creation of the “External Revenue Service” that would “collect our Tariffs, Duties, and all Revenue that come from Foreign sources” and described today as the “birth date” of the new entity. However, Trump might have to wait a bit longer, as it is Congress—not the president—who has the power to create federal agencies. One of Trump’s most prominent policy plans heading into his second term involves increasing tariffs on foreign goods. The president-elect announced in November that he would levy a 25% tariff rate on all imports from Mexico and Canada, while increasing tariffs on Chinese goods by an additional 10%. But economists have repeatedly warned that increasing tariffs could hurt the U.S. economy, with one analysis from May warning of “significant collateral damage.” |
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| One of Trump’s mantras for his second administration: slash government spending. With Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy leading the new Department of Government Efficiency, NASA could soon be a target of these cost-cutting aspirations, Forbes Jeremy Bogaisky wrote in November. Crumbling infrastructure, mounting costs and budget cuts at the agency’s storied launch and research centers seemingly line up perfectly with Trump’s avowed mission. The world is in an oil glut, and the resurgence of the “Drill, Baby, Drill” philosophy under a second Trump term will focus on natural gas, Forbes’ Christopher Helman reported in late December. But supply of liquefied natural gas is only part of the equation: new demand for electricity in the U.S. is set to surge during the Trump years, particularly because of the rise in artificial intelligence. |
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| The cannabis world has high hopes for the second Trump presidency, Forbes reported in November, even though his first term didn’t paint him as a friend to the industry. But his stance has evolved since leaving office: On the campaign trail, he voiced his support for rescheduling and passing banking reform, and as a Florida resident, he expressed support for Florida’s failed Amendment 3, which would have legalized recreational cannabis in the state. |
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 | | ILLUSTRATION BY EMILY SCHERER FOR FORBES; PHOTO BY DNY59/GETTY IMAGES |
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| A little-known group called New Founding is one of a small but growing number of VCs vocally rejecting “wokeism” and building their investment thesis on core conservative values. So far, it’s raised a modest $3 million for its venture fund, but its CEO Nate Fischer told Forbes in December that its 10 investments are the beginnings of a “parallel economy” offering conservative versions of mainstream services it views as too liberal. |
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| Official merchandise sales from Donald Trump’s inaugural committee might go beyond funding the inauguration—that money could ultimately be used to cover the president’s personal expenses, including legal fees, Forbes’ Zach Everson reported earlier this month: |
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37 | The number of inauguration-themed items for sale at t47inaugural.com, the website for the tax-exempt committee tasked with organizing events surrounding the inauguration | |
| 20% | The share of proceeds from merchandise sales that go to Never Surrender, a leadership PAC formed in November, while 80% goes to the RNC—bypassing the nonprofit inaugural committee | |
| ‘The first time that the proceeds of such sales are being diverted to a presidential leadership PAC’ | Said Brett Kappel, an attorney specializing in campaign finance, adding that money in a PAC is “not subject to the prohibition on personal use.” |
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