Washington: Former US President Donald Trump and real estate mogul dropped off from the Forbes 400 list of America’s richest people for the first time in 25 years, the magazine reported.
A Forbes report said that Trump has the same amount of wealth as he had a year ago, but he is down USD 600 million since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Trump’s wealth is worth around USD 2.5 billion, leaving him USD 400 million short of the cutoff to make this year’s Forbes list.
The report said that Trump had the golden opportunity during the time of the US presidential polls.
“Fresh off the 2016 election, federal ethics officials were pushing Trump to divest his real estate assets. That would have allowed him to reinvest the proceeds into broad-based index funds and assume office free of conflicts of interest,” Forbes report said.
However, the former US president had decided to hang onto his assets.
“At the time, they were worth an estimated $3.5 billion, after subtracting debt.” The magazine stated that Trump is to blame for this drop in standings.”If Trump is looking for someone to blame, he can start with himself.”
A few days before entering the White House, Trump had noted that he “could actually run my business and run government at the same time.”
“I don’t like the way that looks, but I would be able to do that if I wanted to. I would be the only one that would be able to do that,” Trump had said, as quoted by Forbes.