Donald Trump Says Market Crash Made Billionaires Richer – Here’s What Really Happened

It’s been crazy couple of days in US stock market, and former President Donald Trump is at it again. During his recent Oval Office speech, Trump made outlandish assertions wherein he categorically stated the recent stock market collapse, which was partially fueled by his own declarations of new tariffs, continued to make numerous billionaires much richer, much richer than they were previously.

Yes, you heard correctly. While everyone else of the individual investors simply sat back and let their portfolios burn, a very select few of very rich people seemingly were the ones who profited from it, earning billions of dollars in the course of only hours. Let’s dissect it all in English and take a look at who the big winners were – and why Trump is squarely in the sights of being charged with insider trading.

What Trump Really Said

In a widespread video clip online, Trump was heard talking about the astronomical returns made by investors during the market mania. “He made two-and-a-half billion today, and he made nine hundred million, that’s not bad!” Trump boasted, of motorsports tycoon Roger Penske and billionaire investor Charles Schwab. All part of his act to describe how his policy of tariffs was paying him back. But while some regarded this as mere Trumpian bluster, others more specifically, his critics perceived something a little darker. Did Trump insiders receive advance warning? Did they use that to good effect in the bag to reap where one soweth?

The Billionaire Winners

Let’s discuss numbers for a second. Financial and tech billionaires, particularly, made big time money on this rollercoaster of a market. And leading the pack was Elon Musk, who earned a whopping $36 billion as Tesla stock climbed 23%. That’s the largest one-day increase ever. Musk’s wealth is now some $311 billion, Bloomberg reports.

And then there’s Charles Schwab, the founder of The Charles Schwab Corporation and himself a wealthy investor. He accumulated $2.5 billion in one day alone, bringing his net worth to nearly $13 billion. Roger Penske, Team Penske owner, added to his wealth by almost $900 million. Actually, the billionaires together accumulated $304 billion on so-called “best day ever” for the rich.

Wait. Was the Market Crash a Setup?

This is where the waters become cloudy. Just before the market rebounded, Trump made a post on his social media site, Truth Social.

And just hours later, Trump testified to a 90-day suspension of retaliatory tariffs – the same tariffs that had goaded the market into a fall in the first place. Coincidence? Not everyone thinks so. Democratic politicians are ringing alarm bells. They think Trump’s “buy now” address and seeming tariff policy flip-flop may have been a move to manipulate the market – potentially at the expense of those with inside information.

Insider Trading Allegations

That creates the greatest scandal: insider trading. If members of Congress or Trump aides purchased and sold stock based on inside information for gain before the rest of us became aware of the policy change, that is a huge legal issue. Senator Chris Murphy posted on Twitter, “An insider trading scandal is brewing.” He further said that Trump’s tweet looked like a naked attempt to pass along the news to his base that the market was ready to rebound.

Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also waded in. She is calling on any member of Congress to disclose their trades if they purchased stocks over the past 48 hours. She implied that there were certain politicians who possessed information that was not available to the public and could have benefited from it unfairly.

What the Republicans Are Saying?

Meanwhile, Republicans are rallying around Trump in droves. Congressman Troy Nehls brushed off the allegations, saying that Trump is a businessman and just knows how the market works. GOP leader John Mc Gurie later didn’t explicitly counter the allegations of manipulation, but asserted that Trump’s approach was “working.”

So, What Happened in the Market?

It began when Trump put enormous tariffs on nearly every country – India, China, Mexico, Canada, and EU nations. That rattled the world. S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow Jones stock markets fell by record percentages. Tech stocks particularly got hammered – Tesla, Apple, Nvidia, and Meta all received a massive time dive.

But then came Trump’s unexpected “tariff pause,” and just like that, the market rebounded – for a short while at least. On April 9, indexes spiked. But the next day, they dropped again. So, we’re left with a pretty chaotic situation: extreme ups and downs, billions gained (or lost), and lots of unanswered questions.

So what do we learn from it all? On first blush, it looks like Trump’s tariff melodrama paid a bonanza to some billionaires. But dig a bit under the surface, and you will understand why everyone is calling for investigations. Did Trump’s inner circle receive a pre-emption tip and bet on it to get rich? Was it by chance? Or was the market crash just an average day in financial and political chess with great risks?

Whatever it is that does happen, you can be sure of one thing – this ain’t going away anytime soon. And the closer we get to disclosure deadline, the more disclosures that will be uncovered, bet your bottom dollar. Keep coming back to this place, because this could potentially turn out to be one of the year’s biggest political-financial scandals.