Elon Musk may be on the outs with President Donald Trump, but among the White House staff required to file financial disclosures as part of their role, about 10% hold Tesla stock — Musk’s only publicly traded company.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt holds the largest Tesla investment of that group, with shares worth between $50,000 and up to $100,000 (stock holdings are disclosed in ranges). At least 11 White House staffers have stock in Trump’s on-again, off-again, billionaire bestie’s company, according to NOTUS’ analysis of 121 staff financial disclosure reports that were quietly published by the White House last week.
Leavitt also has smaller investments in Raytheon, Boeing and Trump Media and Technology group, the company running Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social. She has more than $1 million in cash in the bank, even as her failed congressional campaign owes more than a quarter-million dollars in refunds to unauthorized or excess contributions.
Dan Scavino, Trump’s longtime aide and adviser, holds somewhere between $1 million and $5 million in Trump Media. He also earned more than $850,000 last year as a consultant for the company, according to his financial disclosure reports.
Scavino is one of two White House staffers who earned “content creator” profits from Musk’s social media platform, X, which is not publicly traded, earning more than $75,000 last year in “creator revenue sharing” from the platform. Adviser James Blair also earned a few thousand dollars.
Another popular investment for White House officials: cryptocurrency.
Trump has said he wants to make the U.S. the “crypto capital of the world” and significantly backed off Biden-era regulatory and enforcement efforts against the industry. The price of bitcoin reached an all-time high last month.
That could benefit at least 16 White House staffers who disclosed holding bitcoin or bitcoin-linked trust funds totaling between $800,000 and $2 million in bitcoin holdings collectively.
The financial disclosure dump last week also revealed Trump’s own crypto profits. The president earned at least $57 million from his family-owned, Florida-based crypto firm, World Liberty Financial.
Trump’s disclosures report the income type for the $57 million haul as “token sales,” after WLF ran a contest for top holders of the volatile $TRUMP memecoin to land an invitation to a private dinner with the president.
USD1, World Liberty Financial’s stablecoin — a type of cryptocurrency that’s value is linked to another asset like gold or the dollar — also landed a $2 billion investment deal with an Emirati-backed investment firm.
“President Trump, Vice President Vance, and senior White House staff have completed required ethics briefings and financial reporting obligations,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told NOTUS in a statement about the filings. “The Trump Administration is committed to transparency and accessibility for the American people.”
The disclosures also show how many current White House staffers worked on Trump’s transition or inaugural team last year. At least six worked in key roles on the de facto transition team at America First Policy Institute, including chief of staff Susie Wiles, who was paid for consulting.
About half a dozen current administration staffers have previously worked at The Heritage Foundation, the publisher and think tank behind the Project 2025 plan.
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Claire Heddles is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.