President Trump poses with workers during a visit to Thermo Fisher Scientific on March 11, 2026, within a month of purchasing at least $81,000, and as much as $215,000 worth of the company’s stock.Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
This story was originally published by Popular Information, a substack publication to which you can subscribe here.
On March 11, President Trump took a tour of a manufacturing facility in Reading, Ohio, owned by Thermo Fisher Scientific, a medical supply company. During the tour, Trump lavished praise on Thermo Fisher which uses the facility to manufacture prescription drugs on a contract basis. “It’s a great honor being here. It’s a great company,” Trump said, appearing alongside CEO Marc Casper. “You have done a fantastic job and I’d like to congratulate you.”
Later, Trump asked another Thermo Fisher executive to share “some great information about this incredible company.” The executive talked about how Thermo Fisher is producing drugs for Merck and others at the facility. Trump then explicitly encouraged other pharmaceutical companies to contract with Thermo Fisher to “on-shore” more jobs. He claimed that some pharmaceutical companies were building their own US manufacturing facilities but said “they can get here a lot faster by using this great company.”
“I just left the head of Micron. It’s one of the hottest companies,” Trump said on “The Five.” He’d bought stock in Micron the day before.
Trump did not mention that, the same day of the tour, March 11, he purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 of Thermo Fisher stock. (Federal disclosure rules only require filers to list their transactions in broad ranges.) Trump did not publicly disclose the purchase until May 14. It was listed on page 38 of a 113-page document cataloging Trump’s stock purchases in 2026.
Trump also purchased between $51,000 and $115,000 worth of Thermo Fisher stock about one month before his visit on February 12. He made another purchase of Thermo Fisher valued between $15,000 and $50,000 on March 2. So at the time of Trump’s effusive remarks about Thermo Fisher, he had purchased as much as $215,000 worth of the company’s stock over the previous month.
The fact that Trump visited a Thermo Fisher facility on the same day he purchased the company’s stock—and bought Thermo Fisher stock repeatedly in the weeks before his visit—has not previously been reported.
The disclosures reveal that Trump has been a highly active trader in 2026, executing thousands of transactions—many in individual stocks impacted by his administration’s policies. In response to criticism, a spokesperson for the Trump Organization claimed that the trades were completely separate from Trump’s official duties and managed by an independent outside financial advisor.
“President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively through fully discretionary accounts independently managed by third-party financial institutions with sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions,” the spokesperson said. “Trades are executed and portfolios are balanced through automated investment processes and systems administered by those institutions.”
Trump bought more than $1 million in Dell stock. Nine days later, he told a Georgia crowd to “go out and buy a Dell computer.”
The fact that Trump purchased stock in Thermo Fisher the same day that he toured its facility undercuts this claim. Further, the March 11 purchase of Thermo Fisher stock was marked “UNSOLICITED” in the document.
An “unsolicited” trade is one that is initiated by the customer, not recommended by a broker. If Trump wanted to legally remove himself from investment decisions he could do so by creating a qualified blind trust. Instead, before returning to the White House, Trump transferred his assets in a trust that is managed by his son Donald Trump Jr.
There are no legal or practical barriers preventing Trump from being involved in the management of his assets. But it’s a whopper of an ethical conflict. “When we say Donald Trump is the most corrupt president in American history, it’s because of conduct like this,” says Meghan Faulkner, a spokesperson for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which has been involved in several lawsuits involving Trump and his administration. “It could not be clearer that he views the presidency as a get-rich-quick scheme, and that’s a slap in the face to countless Americans struggling financially thanks to Trump administration policies.”
Thermo Fisher was not the only company featured in Trump’s official remarks and his investment portfolio that day.
After touring the Thermo Fisher facility in Ohio, Trump traveled to Kentucky and delivered a speech that afternoon. During his remarks, Trump singled out Apple and CEO Tim Cook for praise. “Apple, a great company, $2.5 billion to manufacture 100 percent of the glass for iPhones and Apple Watches right here in Kentucky factories,” Trump declared. “Apple [is] spending $650 billion on new plants all over the United States. Think of that. Who the hell else could have done this, nobody else. Nobody else. I say it kiddingly, but I’m actually not kidding. Nobody else could…He’s done a good job, Tim Cook.”
The same day, March 11, Trump purchased between $250,000 and $500,000 of Apple stock. The entry on the disclosure form is also marked unsolicited.
Trump had purchased between $1,000,000 and $5,000,000 of Apple stock in an unsolicited purchase on March 2. In total, Trump purchased between $2 million and $7.2 million in Apple stock during the month of March 2026, including five unsolicited purchases. (He sold smaller amounts of Apple stock on March 6 and March 27.)
Trump’s “financial self-dealing is a profound betrayal of the citizens he is supposed to serve. “
During the speech, Trump also worked in another plug for Thermo Fisher. “I just came from Thermo Fisher Scientific in Reading, Ohio, right across the way, the great American company that’s investing $2 billion in domestic manufacturing,” Trump told the crowd.
On March 25, Trump purchased between $50,000 and $100,000 in Micron stock. The transaction was marked unsolicited.
The next day, Trump called in to Fox News’ popular talk show, “The Five.” In the interview, he said he had recently met with Micron’s top executive and talked up the company’s prospects. “I just left the head of Micron. It’s one of the hottest companies,” Trump said.
Overall, Trump purchased between $217,000 and $530,000 in Micron from March 2 to March 25, including four unsolicited transactions. The fact that Trump touted Micron after building up a large position in its stock has not been previously reported.
There was also overlap between Trump’s public remarks and his investment in Dell Technologies. On February 10, Trump purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell stock.
During an economic speech in Georgia nine days later, Trump told the audience to “go out and buy a Dell computer,” adding the company made “phenomenal products.” Trump also praised Dell CEO Michael Dell and his wife for financially supporting “Trump Accounts” for newborns. The proximity of Trump’s February 19 speech to his purchase of at least $1 million in Dell stock has not been previously reported.
Trump also purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 of Dell stock on March 2 and again on March 11. Both transactions were marked unsolicited. He made a final purchase of Dell stock, valued between $1,000 and $15,000 on March 23.
Trump also continued to encourage people to buy Dell computers. He pitched Dell products on February 27, March 9, April 16, and May 8. The May 8 remarks, delivered at a Mother’s Day event, helped propel Dell’s stock to an all-time high.
Trump’s buy-and-pump routine, Rep. Seth Magaziner (D-R.I.) said in a statement, underscores the importance of legislation such as the bipartisan bill he co-introduced with hard-right Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy that would ban stock trading by members of Congress, and another bill he cosponsored that also addresses trading by the president and vice president.
Trump’s trades, Magaziner noted, “show that he continues to put his own self-enrichment ahead of the interests of the American people,” and outlawing such behavior “is a necessary step to cleaning up the corruption that has plagued Washington for too long.”
Trump’s “financial self-dealing is a profound betrayal of the citizens he is supposed to serve. This is about trust. Elected officials—especially the president—shouldn’t be trading stocks,” added Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who coauthored a Senate companion to the Magaziner-Roy bill.
Other Trump stock purchases appear well timed to take advantage of Trump administration policies. For example, NOTUS reported that Trump “purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on January 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China.” Similarly, NOTUS found that Trump, on January 6, purchased between $50,000 and $100,000 worth of stock in AMD, another chipmaker that was approved to do business with China on January 13.
By law, Trump was required to report all of these trades within 45 days. He missed that deadline for many of his trades. As a result, he was fined $200.
This article has been revised to include reactions to the revelations in the original.
