Trump promoted companies on Truth Social days after buying their stocks: CNN report

US President Donald Trump promoted more than 20 companies on his Truth Social account days after buying stock in those firms, in addition to announcing government actions that could benefit the companies, according to a CNN report.

The report explained that CNN used artificial intelligence to compare a database of Trump’s Truth Social posts with a full list of stock trades released in his annual financial disclosure, looking for cases when the posts mentioned firms in which he’d recently bought or sold stock. Reporters then manually reviewed hundreds of flagged posts and confirmed whether each was relevant.

The analysis found that Trump made at least 44 stock purchases of 21 different companies within a week before he posted a complimentary Truth Social message about the firms, their executives or their products. Many of the posts include Trump’s own commentary, while others quote company CEOs or link to favourable news articles.

It adds that Trump made other stock purchases shortly before sending more general messages highlighting policy changes that could benefit those companies, but without specifically naming them.

For example, Trump purchased between $200,000 and $500,000 of Nvidia’s stock days before posting on Truth Social to share some “very big and exciting news” about the company's plans to build AI supercomputers in the United States.

Government watchdogs say Trump’s social media posts and high-volume trading raise questions about whether the president has a conflict of interest – as Congress debates whether presidents and lawmakers should be allowed to trade stocks at all.

The report added that in recent months, members of Congress have been debating more limited bills that would only ban trading by lawmakers, and not the president.

Responding to the report, the White House strongly denied that Trump has ever used his office for financial gain and said his actions are aimed at benefiting the American public. All of the president’s stock trades are conducted by outside financial managers, his administration said, and Trump and his family have zero control over which trades are made.

“President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public, which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses from the fake news media. There are no conflicts of interest,” stated White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.