Trump dropped from Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans

Former President Donald Trump has fallen out of the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans while his trial continues for allegedly overinflating the value of his many properties.

“With an estimated $2.6 billion fortune, he is $300 million shy of the cutoff” for the “annual measurement that Trump has obsessed over for decades, relentlessly lying to reporters to try to vault himself higher on the list,” the magazine said Tuesday.

His net worth is now down more than $600 million from the same time last year, Forbes reported as Trump returned to court for the second day.

The main reason for Trump’s financial decline is his stalled deal to merge his Truth Social platform with his other assets in a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, according to Forbes  — something he announced he would do just weeks after previously falling off the list in 2021.

Only about 6.5 million people have signed up for Truth Social so far, Forbes reports, or about 1% of the total of X, the new name for Twitter.

As a result, Trump’s 90% stake in the platform’s parent company — Trump Media and Technology Group — fell in value from $730 million to less than $100 million.

“If Trump’s platform were thriving, he would probably have no trouble finding alternate financing,” the Forbes editorial board wrote.

“But it’s not, and there is little reason to be optimistic about Truth Social’s future.

“After all, if people are not logging on to Trump’s platform to hear what he has to say now — while he is simultaneously facing a series of indictments and steamrolling the Republican presidential primary — they probably never will.”

Trump previously fell off the Forbes 400 list in the 1990s after “he conned his way into sharing a spot on the inaugural list in 1982 with his father Fred Trump, by convincing a reporter that he held a larger percentage of Fred’s fortune than he actually did,” the magazine claimed.

“Trump secured massive loans that led to massive bankruptcies, and he fell off the list in 1990, when Forbes exposed deep problems with his debt-fueled empire, ultimately putting his net worth ‘within hailing distance of zero.’”

But Trump sold off some of his riskier assets and rebuilt his empire, ultimately rejoining the list in 1996.

He maintained a spot on the Forbes 400 for 25 years, before he was once again omitted in 2021.

Trump’s wealth at the time was estimated at just $2.5 billion, or $400 million short of the amount needed to be included on the list.

Forbes cited Trump’s big-city real estate holdings for the decline, after their values “languished” during the COVID pandemic.

He rejoined the list last year, after announcing the creation of Truth Social.

The former president is now facing a $250 million civil trial in the Manhattan Supreme Court over claims he exaggerated his net worth in financial statements to get better loan and insurance terms.

Justice Arthur Engoron has already ruled in New York Attorney General Letitia James’ favor on that claim, concluding in a 35-page judgment that Trump had fraudulently reported his property values.

If that ruling stands, Trump could lose control over some well-known New York City properties that bear his name.

But Trump’s lawyers are arguing the former president and the Trump Organization did not intend to defraud anyone with the differing property values.

“Buyers have a view, sellers have a view, none of them are wrong,” attorney Christopher Kise claimed in his opening statement.