What is Trump Worth? (original) (raw)

Trump's relentless bloviating about his developments--"This is going to be the biggest, best, most amazing"--leads many people to assume that he exaggerates his net worth. He's lately put his fortune at 6billion.Wesayit′s6 billion. We say it's 6billion.Wesayit′s2.9 billion. We've never faulted Trump for showing a salesman's enthusiasm in his estimate; he's been sporting about our more skeptical one. "So there's a discrepancy," he says. But last year, in a book about Trump, New York Times editor Timothy L. O'Brien cited three unnamed "people with direct knowledge of Donald's finances" who said Trump's true net worth was 150millionto150 million to 150millionto250 million--in the vicinity of what his publicly traded stake in his casino company is worth.

Yegads! What about Trump Tower, 40 Wall Street and those huge residential developments in Manhattan, Chicago and Las Vegas? O'Brien didn't disclose the math that he or his sources used to arrive at their startlingly low figure. Reached by FORBES, he acknowledged that he hadn't asked New York real estate brokers to value Trump's commercial buildings.

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