President Donald Trump’s latest financial disclosure has revealed that he received a $10.7 million licensing payment tied to Amazon MGM Studios’ Melania documentary, offering the clearest look yet at how much the president earned from the critically reviled project.
Released Tuesday by the US Office of Government Ethics, the 927-page filing lists a $10.71 million licensing fee connected to Melania, the Brett Ratner-directed documentary centered on First Lady Melania Trump. The disclosure also shows an additional $521,161 in licensing income from Melania Trump’s memoir, published by Skyhorse Publishing, along with roughly $6 million in proceeds from NFTs and other collectibles associated with the First Lady.
Amazon MGM Studios reportedly paid $40 million to acquire the rights to Melania following a post-election bidding war. According to reporting by The Wall Street Journal, the deal came after Donald and Melania Trump met with Jeff Bezos at Mar-a-Lago just weeks following the 2024 presidential election.
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Melania debuted in theaters in January before later arriving on Prime Video, and was met with withering reviews. Consequence gave the “documentary” an F, criticizing the film as a glossy exercise in image management that offered nothing beyond carefully controlled access to the First Lady. Despite Amazon’s reported $75 million investment in acquiring and marketing Melania, the documentary ultimately grossed just $16.7 million worldwide during its theatrical run. Currently, Melania has a 7% rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
In addition to the Melania-related payments, the filing reports more than $1.4 billion in cryptocurrency-related income through ventures including World Liberty Financial and the $TRUMP meme coin, pushing his reported annual revenue past $2 billion.
When Trump was asked whether he was profiting from the presidency in light of the blockbuster financial disclosure, he argued that “everybody is profiting” because the stock market is up. During the brief line of questioning, the president also said, “I made a lot of money before I became president… I don’t know if I had a better career in politics or business.” The report shows he made more than triple the profits from the year before he got re-elected, so it’s safe to say the answer is politics.
Responding to questions about the president’s business interests, White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged — or will ever engage — in conflicts of interest,” adding that “all actions by President Trump and his administration are taken in the best interest of the American people.”
The statement is likely to do little to quiet critics, who have pointed to controversies ranging from Trump’s cryptocurrency ventures to the administration’s acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747-8 from Qatar, which underwent extensive taxpayer-funded modifications before taking off just hours ago as an interim Air Force One.
For more on the film itself, revisit Liz Shannon Miller’s F-rated review of Melania, which examined Ratner’s return to directing and the documentary’s attempt to launder the First Lady’s public image through prestige-documentary packaging.
