- Trump in a statement Wednesday pointed to a 2014 document placing his net worth at $5 billion.
- But in 2015 while campaigning he said the same document put his net worth at $8.7 billion.
In a statement Trump listed figures from what he said was a 2014 "Statement of Financial Condition" from Mazars which placed Trump's net worth at $5.7 billion.
But the sum Trump cited in his statement is considerably less than the amount he claimed to be worth around the same time.
When he launched his bid for the presidency from Trump Tower in 2015, Trump mentioned seemingly the same statement, but said it put his wealth at $8.7 billion.
Then weeks later he revised the sum upwards to place his wealth at more than $10 billion.
The statement adds another layer of complexity to the mystery of Trump's true wealth, with his claims on the subject over the years coming under renewed scrutiny.
—Byron York (@ByronYork) February 16, 2022
The New York attorney general's office is investigating allegations that the Trump Organization may have systematically exaggerated the value of its assets, and a parallel criminal inquiry is being conducted by the Manhattan district attorney.
The value of Trump's fortune has been debated long before prosecutors launched ther investigations. His wealth and business acumen is at the core of his political brand — but his propensity for exaggeration and boasting is well known.
Trump has been guarded with his financial information, bucking convention and refusing to release tax statements while running for president.
But the pressure on Trump increased in January. In a slew of documents released by the NY AG, prosecutors alleged a systematic attempt by the Trump Organization to inflate the value of multiple assets in an apparent bid to secure favourable insurance terms and loans.
The statement from Mazars released Monday, painting his historic accounts as unreliable, puts further doubt on the integrity of Trump's finances.
However, it also said its staff found no "material discrepancies" in the past records, further muddying what exactly it saw as the issue with them.
Trump has strenuously denied any wrongdoing in his financial affairs, and claims that the investigations into his businesses are politically motivated.
After the release of the Manhattan DA's documents, Forbes analyzed the documents with a focus on Trump's claims about his own wealth.
The magazine found multiple discrepancies in how much the documents said Trump had available as cash (an apparent $20 million in 2020) compared to the far lager sums he boasted of having publicly.
One claim was in a sit-down interview with Forbes in 2015 where he claimed to have $793 million in the bank, with no more proof on hand than a note he wrote himself in Sharpie pen during the interview.
In his statement Tuesday, Trump denounced what he described as a "vicious intimidation tactics" of the New York investigators that led Mazars to quit.
He went on to claim that "brand value" in fact boosted his $5 billion wealth by between $2.8 billion and $3 billion. He claimed his net worth in 2022 was "approximately $8 to $9 billion" based on the value of his brand and "current enthusiasm and transactions which have or will take place."
This sum is in line with the $8.7 billion he claimed to have at one point in 2015.
But it's still a considerably lower sum than $2.5 billion Forbes gave for Trump's net worth in September 2021, when he dropped off the magazine's coveted rich list for the first time in 20 years.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment.