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The red ink of Trump’s businesses |
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President Trump’s finances have remained under wraps for years. But a major investigation by The Times’s Russ Buettner, Sue Craig and Mike McIntire has cracked open his business, revealing from tax records that he paid just $750 in federal income taxes in 2016 and 2017 and nothing for most of the past 15 years. |
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Here’s what the report shows about the state of the Trump Organization — and the enormous financial and legal pressures Mr. Trump faces. |
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Huge losses across the Trump empire: Mr. Trump’s golf resorts, including Doral in Florida and three in Europe, have lost $315.6 million since 2000. The Trump Corporation, a real estate services company, has lost $134 million in that time. |
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• Those reported losses were used to offset profits from Mr. Trump’s brand-licensing business, which netted $427 million from 2004 to 2018. Other moneymakers include Trump Tower and a 30 percent stake in two office towers run by Vornado. |
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Ticking time bombs: Mr. Trump hasn’t repaid any principal for the mortgage on Trump Tower, which means $100 million will come due in 2022. He personal guaranteed company loans totaling $421 million, most of which comes due within the next four years. And a defeat in a dispute with the I.R.S. over a $73 million tax refund could mean he owes $100 million (plus interest). |
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Questionable financial maneuvers: Mr. Trump appears to have used aggressive accounting, particularly by writing off about $26 million in “consulting fees” as business expenses to reduce income. Those included $747,622 in consulting fees that match income reported by his daughter Ivanka, a Trump Organization executive at the time. (He also expensed $70,000 in hairstyling during his run on NBC’s “The Apprentice.” |
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The fallout: Mr. Trump insisted at a news conference that he had “paid a lot” in taxes. Democratic lawmakers renewed demands for his tax returns and criticized him for paying less in taxes than most Americans. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tweeted, “In 2016 & ’17, I paid thousands of dollars a year in taxes *as a bartender.*” |
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What may lie ahead: “Should he win re-election,” our colleagues write, “his lenders could be placed in the unprecedented position of weighing whether to foreclose on a sitting president.” |
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Today’s DealBook Briefing was written by Andrew Ross Sorkin in Connecticut, Lauren Hirsch in New York, Ephrat Livni in Washington and Michael J. de la Merced and Jason Karaian in London. |
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On Elon Musk’s mind: Tesla’s share price ... and the end of the world. Aly Song/Reuters |
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Elon Musk, unfiltered |
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The Tesla C.E.O. sat down with our Times Opinion colleague Kara Swisher for the latest episode of her new podcast, Sway, out this morning. The riveting conversation ranges from his company’s stratospheric stock price to the end of the world. Find the highlights below — and check out the full podcast. |
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On politics: |
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Mr. Musk remains noncommittal about how he intends to vote: “Let’s just see how the debates go.” But he told Kara that climate change — which he has called the planet’s biggest threat — is on his mind: “I want to see if Biden has it together. If he does, he probably wins.” |
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On Tesla’s stock price: |
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He noted that he had described it as “a bit high,” well before where it’s trading now. (It closed at $407.34 on Friday.) But he added, “Do I think Tesla will be worth more than this in five years? I think the answer is yes.” |
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On the future of energy: |
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He said that the end of vehicles relying on fossil fuels is near, but also expressed sympathy for the industry’s workers: “For a lot of the people in the oil and gas industry, especially if they’re on the older side, they kind of bought their companies and did their work before it was clear that this was a serious issue.” |
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On managing: |
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Long criticized for being a micromanager, Mr. Musk says that he does want to delegate responsibilities. But he said, “The practical reality of it is that I cannot delegate, because I can’t find people to delegate it to.” |
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How the world ends: |
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Mr. Musk worries about a lot, including meteors, “supervolcanoes” and increasingly severe climate variation. “And then,” he adds, “eventually the sun’s going to expand and engulf Earth.” |
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Jessica Alba is putting her company on the block. Thos Robinson/Getty Images for The New York Times |
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Exclusive: Jessica Alba’s Honest Company weighs a sale |
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The natural beauty and baby care company has hired Morgan Stanley and Jefferies to run a sale process that it hopes will value the company at more than $1 billion, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch has learned. (Morgan Stanley declined to comment, and Jefferies and The Honest Company didn’t respond to requests for comment.) |
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Its valuation will be a test of its turnaround. After making a splash with natural products and celebrity backing — and raising funds at a $1.7 billion valuation as it considered an I.P.O. — it ran into trouble in 2016 when reports questioned its ingredient-labeling practices. Growth stalled, and the company’s valuation had dropped to less than $1 billion by 2017. |
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It has embarked on a turnaround. The company hired as its C.E.O. Nick Vlahos of Clorox, who focused on expanding R.&D. operations and rolling out a clean-beauty line. And it now sells in physical stores like Walgreens. |
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• It now has about $300 million in sales and is profitable, Lauren hears. |
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Who might bid? Potential suitors include larger consumer companies looking to expand their foothold in the clean-beauty market or a special-purpose acquisition vehicle that could merge with Honest and give it a public stock listing. |
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