President Donald Trump purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in TKO Holding Group, the parent company of UFC and WWE, weeks ahead of a White House UFC event he’s promoted for months.
The purchase was disclosed in Trump’s May 8 financial disclosures, which are publicly available through the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Those documents do not specify how much stock Trump purchased but say he acquired it March 25 — a little more than two weeks after the Freedom Fights 250 fight card was publicly revealed.
Trump’s personal stock portfolio is under renewed scrutiny this week after the Pentagon’s announcement that it is awarding a $9.7 billion defense contract to Dell Technologies, in which the president has invested millions of dollars over the last three months.
“‘The Fake News’ continued attempts to fabricate conflicts of interest are irresponsible and reinforce the public’s distrust in what they read,” White House spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement provided to The Athletic. “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. President Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children. There are no conflicts of interest.”
A trust does oversee Trump’s investments, but it is not a blind trust, which is structured to ensure the owner has no knowledge or control over the trust’s activities.
UFC is scheduled to hold the first professional sports event on the White House grounds on June 14, Trump’s 80th birthday, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding. Construction is underway on the White House South Lawn, with seating for roughly 4,300 attendees and a large temporary arch dubbed “The Claw” going up earlier this week.
Dana White, UFC’s president and chief executive officer, has said the promotion is spending $60 million on the show’s production, and UFC is footing the bill for $700,000 in restorations to the South Lawn after the event.
The event card is headlined by a lightweight title fight between defending champion Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje, as well as an interim heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane. Heavyweights Josh Hokit and Derrick Lewis are also on the card, alongside bantamweights Sean O’Malley and Aiemann Zahabi; lightweights Mauricio Ruffy and Michael Chandler; middleweights Bo Nickal and Kyle Daukaus; and featherweights Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia.
TKO has not responded to a request for comment from The Athletic. This story will be updated if that changes.
Dana White has supported Donald Trump in all three of his presidential campaigns. (Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
HuffPo first reported on the TKO investment. In response to criticism of Trump’s personal financial dealings as indicative of favoritism and corruption, those around him have repeatedly said he does not make decisions on specific investments.
“The president doesn’t sit at the Oval Office on his computer on his, like, Robinhood account buying and selling stocks. That’s absurd,” Vice President JD Vance told reporters at a White House press briefing earlier this month. “He has independent wealth advisers who manage his money. He is a wealthy person. He has had success in business. He’s not making these stock trades himself.”
Trump’s relationship with UFC goes back to the company’s emergence in the 1990s and 2000s. His venues in Atlantic City, N.J., hosted some of the first major events, and White considers the president a close friend whom he credits for helping UFC survive its early political and financial barriers.
White spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention during all three of his presidential campaigns, even though White described himself during an interview Wednesday with NPR as a “1980s Democrat” and said he leans left.
TKO head Ari Emanuel is a well-known Democrat who has donated tens of millions of dollars to party candidates, including former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2024 campaign against Trump. His older brother Rahm Emanuel served as chief of staff for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2010 and was mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019.
The younger Emanuel and Dell founder Michael Dell recently crossed financial paths by becoming minority owners in the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders. They were part of a group that bought a combined 25.3 percent stake in the franchise under a purchase the league approved May 20. TKO COO Mark Shapiro also bought into the collective.