In the months before his trip to China, US President Donald Trump invested heavily in the tech company Apple, whose boss Tim Cook accompanied him in Beijing.
May 15, 2026, 05:01May 15, 2026, 05:01
Trump invested up to $7.2 million (almost 5.7 million Swiss francs) in Apple in the first three months of the year, according to data from the US Government Ethics Agency. The exact monetary amounts cannot be read; as usual, only approximate ranges are given in the mandatory list.
Tim Cook (left) accompanied Donald Trump and the US delegation at the meeting with China’s head of state Xi Jinping.Image: keystone
However, Trump has significantly increased his investments in Apple, as the data shows. The largest purchase was made at the beginning of February and was worth between one and five million dollars. It is not clear from the data whether the investments were in stocks or other financial instruments.
Trump also traded with Boeing and Nvidia
The US President will be accompanied on his state visit by a large business delegation, including tech billionaire Elon Musk, Apple boss Cook as well as the head of chip manufacturer Nvidia, Jensen Huang, and Boeing boss Kelly Ortberg. Trump also traded heavily in the securities of their companies in the previous months, although there is no clear trend as to whether purchases or sales predominated.
Boeing secured an order for 300 aircraft in China worth over $37 billion, which Trump also announced – although he gave a different number. Meanwhile, an even larger order was expected on the stock exchange, which is why the share price fell significantly.
Million-dollar sales from Meta, Amazon and Microsoft
Nvidia is currently trying to get back into the Chinese market. The company, which plays the leading role in chips for artificial intelligence, once also did billion-dollar business in China. But then came export restrictions from the US government and instructions from Beijing to buy technology from its own manufacturers such as Huawei. For Nvidia, relations with China involve a lot of money: according to Huang’s estimate, the company is missing out on China revenues of around $50 billion this year alone.
What is also remarkable in Trump’s list is the number of transactions that the wealthy former real estate entrepreneur is now reporting: In terms of acquisitions alone, there are over 2,300 entries for the three months. However, at least some of the transactions were not controlled by Trump himself, but rather from managed accounts. The largest transactions were sales of tech stocks. Trump sold individual securities worth up to $25 million from Microsoft as well as Amazon and Meta – all on February 10th. (sda/dpa)