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Trump made $1.4bn from crypto in one year. Is Justin Sun the man who helped him do it?

16 July 2026 at 17:19

The entrepreneur is known in Washington as the financial power behind the president’s crypto fortune. How did Sun’s business love-in with the Trump family spiral into dueling lawsuits?

The most infamous financial scandal in US presidential history – the 1920s Teapot Dome affair – involved then president Warren G Harding’s interior secretary, Albert Fall, taking roughly $400,000 in bribes. Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $6m today. Last year, Donald Trump made at least $2.2bn; his single year of income is on the order of 200 to 300 times larger than the bribe that defined β€œpresidential corruption” in the American imagination for a century.

It’s taken for granted that Trump flogs items like Bibles and gold sneakers as a way to wring more money from his loyal base. But of the president’s $2.2bn, at least $1.4bn came from his crypto businesses. That’s an extraordinary achievement, even for an unscrupulous sitting president. How exactly did he do it without any prior background in crypto?

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Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

Why $1bn in Balkans energy contracts are going to an obscure company connected to Donald Trump

Guardian investigation shows how US presidency blurs line between policy and enrichment of American ruling family and those around it

On a graffitied Sarajevo backstreet, a path leads past an overgrown patch of garden to a white door. Beyond is the registered office of a company that is on the brink of winning contracts worth more than $1bn.

AAFS Infrastructure and Energy is close to securing a concession to build and operate a pipeline across the Balkans to allow fossil gas shipped from the US to replace supplies that come from Russia. β€œThis could be the most important infrastructure project ever in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” says one of the country’s top officials, who, like others, asks to remain anonymous to discuss sensitive negotiations.

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Β© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Β© Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

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