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A new investigation has found that President Trump promoted more than 20 companies on Truth Social shortly after his money managers bought shares in those same businesses.

Getting into it: The investigation, first released by CNN, used AI to match Trump’s Truth Social posting history against every trade listed in his annual financial disclosure, then had reporters check the hits by hand. In at least 44 instances across 21 companies, Trump’s accounts bought in and he followed within a week with a favorable post about the business, its leadership, or what it sells. His 2025 disclosure lists more than 21,000 transactions, and he sent more than 6,000 Truth Social posts over the same year.

Nvidia is the clearest case. On April 15, 2025, Trump posted “very big and exciting news” about the chipmaker’s plans to build AI supercomputers in the US, vowing that “all necessary permits will be expedited and quickly delivered.” His followers weren’t told that his accounts had picked up between $200,000 and $500,000 of Nvidia stock in the days leading up to it.

American Eagle Outfitters followed a similar pattern. His accounts bought between $15,000 and $50,000 of the retailer on July 31, and four days later he praised its Sydney Sweeney ad, writing that the jeans were “flying off the shelves.”

Notably, the pattern cuts both ways, which complicates any simple pump-and-dump reading. Eight of the companies went the opposite direction, with at least 17 buys followed by Trump trashing the business or the people running it. That includes at least $1.3 million of Microsoft stock days before attacking the company over a hire, and a Comcast buy days before he slammed it as “Concast.” It’s unclear if Trump purchased puts on these, which are contracts that pay off when a stock falls, meaning he would have profited from the drop his own comments could cause.

The White House denies wrongdoing. Spokesperson Anna Kelly said Trump’s assets are “held in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions” and that “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public… There are no conflicts of interest.” A Trump Organization spokesperson added that neither Trump nor his family “plays any role in selecting, directing, or approving specific investments.”

This all comes as Trump has endorsed banning congressional stock trading while opposing efforts to apply the same rules to himself, blasting Sen. Josh Hawley for backing a broader ban and writing that “I don’t think real Republicans want to see their President, who has had unprecedented success, TARGETED, because of the ‘whims’ of a second-tier Senator named Josh Hawley!”