Trump, the world's largest oil trader

Author: David, Deep Tide TechFlow

How much is a post actually worth?

At 7:05 a.m. Eastern Time on March 23, Trump posted a message in all caps on Truth Social, stating that the United States and Iran had had "very good and productive conversations" over the past two days and that he had ordered a five-day halt to strikes against Iranian power plants and energy facilities.

When this post was published, the US stock market had not yet opened. But the futures market is open in real time.

Within minutes, Dow Jones futures rose more than 1,000 points, and S&P 500 futures rose 2.7%. Brent crude oil plummeted from $113 a barrel to $98, a drop of more than 13%.

A reporter from Fortune magazine, a well-known international media outlet, later calculated that from the time the post was published until the market digested it, the total market capitalization of US stocks increased by approximately $1.7 trillion.

If you were an ordinary trader and posted a message on social media about oil supply that caused global oil prices to plummet by 13%, regulators would likely be knocking on your door within 24 hours.

But if you're the President of the United States, this is called diplomacy.

Then Iran said: We have not spoken with him.

The Iranian state news agency quoted a security official as saying that there has been no direct or indirect dialogue between Tehran and Washington. Iranian scholar Seyed Mohammad Marandi wrote more directly on X:

"Trump issues these kinds of statements every week at the start of the trading week to try and lower oil prices. This time, he even timed the five-day deadline precisely at the close of the energy market trading week. "

When the news reached the US, the market gave back nearly half of its gains. However, by the close, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was still up 631 points, and Brent crude oil settled at $99.94, the first time it had fallen below $100 since March 11. In other words, the market chose to believe Trump's version of events, at least half of it.

A single post, an hour, and trillions of dollars swing back and forth.

This is less a diplomatic statement by the president and more an order placed by the world's largest oil trader.

Moreover, the tools he wielded weren't futures contracts, but the US military and Truth Social media. Other traders use money to go long or short; he used the switch to wage war.

According to CNBC, about 15 minutes before the post was published, around 6:50 a.m. New York time, there was an unusual surge in trading volume for both S&P 500 futures and crude oil futures.

In the pre-market session where liquidity is very thin, such a sudden, isolated surge in volume is very noticeable.

Fifteen minutes later, the post was published, oil prices plummeted, and stock indices surged. In other words, whoever acted at 6:50 AM made money after 7:05 AM. In the commodities market, precisely positioning oneself before major news is one of the most classic forms of insider trading.

Image source: CNBC, S&P 500 pre-market trading volume surges.

Last April, when Trump's repeated changes of mind on tariff policy caused sharp market fluctuations, Senator Adam Schiff publicly questioned: Who knew what the president was going to say before he posted it? No one provided an answer that time.

CNBC contacted the SEC and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and both agencies gave the same response: declined to comment.

And this isn't the first time. Looking back, Trump has been using words to influence oil prices for almost a decade now.

Business with mouth

Trump has been talking about oil prices on social media since 2011, before he was president, and criticizing OPEC for market manipulation was part of his daily routine. But criticizing is one thing, and a real estate tycoon venting on Twitter is quite another.

What truly transformed him from a "commentator" into a "trader" was a trade in 2020.

At the beginning of that year, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, bringing the global economy to a standstill and causing a precipitous drop in oil demand. To make matters worse, Saudi Arabia and Russia engaged in a price war, increasing production to grab market share, driving oil prices down to just over $20 per barrel. Large numbers of US shale oil companies went bankrupt, and the entire industry was in dire straits.

Logically, low gas prices are good for consumers—gas is cheaper. A president who cares about the interests of his voters should welcome this.

But Trump did the opposite.

He invited a room full of oil company CEOs to the White House for a meeting. Then he personally called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian President Vladimir Putin, persuading them to join OPEC in massive production cuts. His goal was singular:

This will push oil prices back up.

He then tweeted, hinting that a production cut agreement was imminent, and WTI crude oil surged 25% that day, marking the largest single-day gain in history.

Why bail out oil prices? Because the owners of those shale oil companies that are on the verge of bankruptcy are his biggest political donors.

According to public reports, oil tycoon Harold Hamm lost $3 billion in personal wealth within days of the oil price crash and subsequently lobbied Trump to intervene. NBC's headline at the time was quite direct: "Trump, who wanted to lower oil prices, is now discussing with oil executives how to raise them."

The essence of this deal is that global consumers pay for higher oil prices, the profits flow to his political donors, and he himself receives funds for the next round of campaigning.

If this matter had ended there, it could have been categorized as a "political exchange." But Trump did something no politician would do—he publicly admitted it.

At subsequent campaign rallies, he repeatedly addressed his supporters in the audience, saying:

"We drove oil prices too low, and we had to bail out the oil companies. I called OPEC, and I also called Russia and Saudi Arabia, and told them that prices had to come up. "

The audience erupted in applause.

Image source: Visual Capitalist

In 2023, the academic journal Energy Policy published a paper that traced all of Trump's social media posts related to oil from when he announced his candidacy in 2015 until his account was suspended in 2021.

The conclusion is that his tweets did have a quantifiable impact on WTI crude oil futures prices and significantly amplified speculative behavior in the market.

In other words, the academic community has used data to confirm something that all traders already knew: this person's words could move global oil prices. And the story of 2020 proves that he not only could, but he was willing, and his motivation was not national interest, but his own network of interests.

From his first term to now, Trump's oil-trading tools have evolved. Twitter has become Truth Social, and criticizing OPEC has been replaced by suspending the bombing of Iran...

But the logic has never changed: use the president's unique informational advantage and policy power to create price fluctuations in the world's largest commodity market.

From mouth to hands

Over the past decade, Trump has made money from "influence" in the oil market.

With a single word, others profit or lose, while he gains political capital. But in 2026, the nature of this business began to change.

In early March of this year, both the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported the same news: Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, Trump's two sons, were investing in a military drone company called Powerus.

Donald Jr. is also a shareholder and advisory board member of Unusual Machines, a drone parts company, holding approximately 330,000 shares worth about $4 million.

He joined the company in November 2024, just weeks after his father won the election. He had no prior experience in the drone or military industries.

Unusual Machines subsequently secured a contract from the U.S. Army to produce 3,500 drone motors, with the military also stating that an additional 20,000 parts would be added in 2026.

Donald Jr. is also a partner at venture capital firm 1789 Capital. According to the Financial Times, in 2025 alone, at least four of the firm's portfolio companies received defense contracts from the Trump administration, totaling more than $735 million.

Forbes estimates that Donald Jr.'s net worth was approximately $50 million before he took office in January 2025, and that it would have increased sixfold by the end of the year.

Then, his father launched a war against Iran on February 28, 2026.

Drones are the hallmark weapon of this war. According to the New York Times, both the US and Iran are using drones on a large scale, with each drone costing only a fraction of a conventional missile. The Pentagon is pushing forward with an $1.1 billion procurement plan, aiming to deploy more than 200,000 US-made attack drones by 2027.

A few days after the war began, his son Eric Trump posted on X: "Drones are the future."

The conflict of interest is obvious. A president's son enters the defense industry after his father takes office, and the company he invests in wins contracts with his father's government, while his father is fighting a war that consumes a large amount of these companies' products.

Beyond oil, the Trump family's business has expanded to war itself. Oil was money he made with words, drones were money his son made with his hands.

Today is the first day of the ceasefire. In five days, either the negotiations will yield results, the Strait of Hormuz will reopen to navigation, and oil prices will continue to fall; or nothing will be reached, Iran will continue to block the strait, and everything will return to normal.

The world's largest oil trader issued a five-day option to the market. Whether the strike price represents war or peace, nobody knows.

But one thing is certain: when oil prices rise, his son's drone company gets more orders; when oil prices fall, he wins again on Truth Social.

Regardless of the outcome, he will not lose money.