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By Hugh Cameron
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President Donald Trump has railed against American oil companies for cashing in on soaring fuel costs since the launch of the Iran war in February, but the president has invested in the very firms he is now criticizing and may have benefited from their recent success.
In late July, oil supermajors Chevron and ExxonMobil reported a sharp increase in earnings for the second quarter, amid the ongoing supply disruptions that have pushed up domestic fuel prices and presented another political headache for Republicans ahead of this year’s midterms.
The blockbuster earnings helped to lift the share price for both companies but drew the ire of environmental groups as well as the president himself, who said the pair were earning “too much money” on the back of higher gas prices and struggling consumers.
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But analysis of the president’s own financial disclosures for 2025 and early 2026 reveals sizable investments in both firms, investments that —assuming these have been retained—mean he may have stood to benefit from the successes he has now denounced.
Approached for comment, the White House referred Newsweek back to the president’s original criticisms of the two companies, in which he also urged them to give some profits “back to the public.” Regarding his stock holdings, White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said these assets were managed by a third party and rejected any suggestion of a conflict of interest.
Trump Slams Oil Majors Over Iran War Windfalls
As revealed in their latest earnings reports, Chevron and Exxon announced a significant increase in profits for the second quarter. Chevron’s net income soared nearly 400 percent year-on-year to $12.2 billion, while Exxon reported $14.7 billion in adjusted earnings—twice what it made a year prior and marking its largest quarterly profit since the 2022 energy crisis.
Many analysts attributed the gains to stronger refining margins and higher crude prices—both the product of global supply disruptions sparked by Iran’s effective closure of the Hormuz Strait, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil previously flowed.
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And the president said the pair were benefitting from an oil “shortage” and high consumer costs. Gas prices have once again climbed above $4 per gallon, down from a recent peak of over $4.50 in May but up from under $3 when the war began on February 28.
“And I should be the last one to say [that] because I’m a big free enterprise guy,” Trump said to reporters in the White House. Separately, in a series of posts to Truth Social, the president urged American oil companies to “Get your consumer (retail!) Oil Prices DOWN, NOW!"
In June, he had ordered a Justice Department probe into U.S. oil companies over alleged price gouging. He also threatened “big problems” for gas station owners who failed to “get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY!”
The Justice Department has since urged states to participate in the probe, calling on them to use “all tools available” to investigate any misconduct that could be inflating retail gas prices.
And experts who spoke to Newsweek previously said the president has a number of tools at his disposal to manually lower prices, including a windfall tax, though most were skeptical these will be used.
Has Trump Profited From the Iran War Windfalls?
Throughout his second term, Trump has faced repeated accusations that he is using public office for private gain—conflict of interest concerns that have intensified since the launch of the Iran war.
However, the president and vice president are exempt from the principal federal criminal conflict-of-interest statute, which requires executive branch officials to recuse themselves from government matters that could affect their personal financial interests. The administration has rejected allegations of any conflict of interest, though critics continue to raise concerns on ethical and transparency—rather than legal—grounds.
As the White House told Newsweek, Trump’s holdings are maintained in fully discretionary accounts and managed by third-party institutions, rather than actively managed by the president.
"They invest my money, and I don't talk to them. I never—I don't even speak to them,” Trump said following the release of his 2025 annual disclosure in June, which revealed over 14,000 individual trades over the course of the year.
But his portfolio has nevertheless drawn scrutiny due to overlapping policy decisions and the notable success of his investment strategy.
Analysis of the president’s 2025 annual financial disclosure report reveals that those managing his accounts made dozens of purchases of Chevron and Exxon during the year, as well as a number of sales, and that he had significant holdings of both by the end of the year. For Chevron, Newsweek calculated that the president held between $2.595 million and $11.35 million, as well as $3.18 million to $12.45 million in Exxon stock by the end of 2025.
Both companies’ shares have rallied in 2026, on the back of surging earnings and expectations of higher oil prices in the near-term. As of market close on Thursday, Chevron and Exxon were up 27 percent and 29 percent in the year-to-date, respectively, and have climbed 5.9 percent and 4 percent since February 27, the last day of trading before the war began.
Assuming that Trump retained all holdings he had at the end of 2025—and that all holdings estimates were at the upper end—this would imply that the president made $3.1 million on his Chevron shares since the start of 2026, and nearly $700,000 since the beginning of the conflict. For Exxon, these gains would reach $3.6 million in 2026 and just under $500,000 since the start of the war.
Disclosures released in May and covering the first quarter of 2026 reveal that Trump continued to purchase shares in both companies this year. Between January and the end of March, the president made up to $845,000 worth of total purchases in Chevron, as well as up to $530,000 worth of purchases, and one sale of $15,001 to $50,000, of Exxon.
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In analysis shared with Newsweek, the climate-focused advocacy group Climate Power said that these purchases may have further swelled the president's oil-related earnings. Assuming he retained his 2025 holdings, and taking into account the purchases made in 2026, it calculated that Trump’s Chevron holdings had climbed around $2 million to $9.6 million, while his Exxon stake had risen $2.6 million to roughly $10 million since the beginning of 2026.
“While he is making millions from his Chevron and Exxon stock holdings alone, Americans are paying more for everything from gas to groceries and utility bills,” Jay Inslee, Climate Power's co-chair and the former Democratic Governor of Washington, told Newsweek. “It’s clear that when he said high gas prices were good for America, what he really meant was that high gas prices were good for him.”
The projected gains remain estimates, as Trump’s current holdings will only be revealed when the president next releases a quarterly or annual financial disclosure statement.
How Iran War Has Hit Trump’s Portfolio
As Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Robert Garcia noted in a recent letter to the president, Trump’s financial disclosures reveal an “unprecedented” volume of trading by a sitting president. And as a result, not all of the president’s investments have been winners since either the beginning of the year or the outbreak of the conflict, with travel and consumer discretionary stocks among the hardest hit as rising costs squeeze household budgets.
His 2025 report revealed a stake worth up to $45,000 in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings—a stock that has fallen over 14 percent since the start of the year. In May, the company said lower booking rates had been “exacerbated” by “softer demand related to heightened geopolitical uncertainty.”
Several U.S. restaurant chains have also reported weaker sales and identified war-related affordability pressures as a culprit. Chipotle—which Trump held up to $160,000 in shares of at the end of last year—has seen its stock slide 12 percent since February 28, and the company has likewise blamed weak sales growth on declines in consumer confidence.
But despite the occasional miss, the high volume and market-beating success of President Trump’s portfolio continues to invite scrutiny from lawmakers—themselves moving forward efforts to ban stock trading by members of Congress.
“The sheer volume of this trading activity and the timing of a number of transactions, raise questions about whether you are using your knowledge of government activities, your official authority, or the vast megaphone provided by the presidency to make investments or move markets to your personal benefit—and about whether you have been making decisions that boost your portfolio at the expense of taxpayers, the economy, and national security,” Senator Warren and Representative Garcia wrote in a letter sent to Trump this week, while requesting further information on the "third-party institutions" who manage the president's trades.
But the White House remains resolute that none of Trump’s trading activity merits suspicion.
“The media’s continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and only deepen the public's distrust in what they read,” Rogers told Newsweek.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Daniel Orton and Yannick Demoustier.
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