Trump, the World's Largest Oil Trader

No matter the outcome, he won’t lose money.

Author: David, Deep Tide TechFlow

How much is a single post worth?

At 7:05 a.m. Eastern Time on March 23, Trump posted a message in all caps on Truth Social, saying: “The United States and Iran have had very good, productive talks over the past two days,” and that he had ordered a five-day pause on strikes against Iranian factories and energy facilities.

When he posted, the U.S. stock market hadn’t opened yet. But the futures market is live.

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

Later, a reporter from the renowned foreign media outlet Fortune magazine calculated that from the moment the post was made until the market digested it, the total U.S. stock market capitalization increased by approximately $1.7 trillion.

If you are an ordinary trader and post a message about oil supply that causes global oil prices to drop 13%, regulators would likely come knocking within 24 hours.

But if you’re the U.S. president, that’s called diplomacy.

Then Iran said: We haven’t talked to him.

Iran’s state news agency quoted a security official saying there had been no direct or indirect talks between Tehran and Washington. Iranian scholar Seyed Mohammad Marandi was more direct on X:

“Every week when the market opens, Trump posts statements like this to suppress oil prices. This time, the five-day deadline just happened to coincide with the close of the energy market trading week.”

The news reached the U.S., and the market’s gains were nearly halved. But by the close, the Dow still rose 631 points, and Brent crude settled at $99.94, falling below $100 for the first time since March 11. In other words, the market chose to believe Trump’s version—at least half of it.

A single post, a one-hour window, swings worth trillions of dollars.

It’s less about the president making diplomatic statements and more about the world’s largest oil trader placing orders.

And his tools aren’t futures contracts—they’re the U.S. military and Truth Social. While other traders use money to go long or short, he uses the switch of war.

According to CNBC, about 15 minutes before the post—around 6:50 a.m. New York time—there was a spike in abnormal trading volume in both S&P 500 futures and oil futures.

In the thin pre-market hours, such sudden, isolated volume spikes are very noticeable.

Fifteen minutes later, the post was made, oil prices crashed, and stock indices soared. That means whoever acted at 6:50 a.m. made money after 7:05 a.m. When it comes to commodities markets, pre-positioning before major news is one of the classic forms of insider trading.

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

Last April, during a period of intense market volatility caused by Trump’s repeated flip-flopping on tariffs, Senator Adam Schiff publicly questioned: Who knew what he was going to say before he posted? No one provided an answer.

This isn’t the first time. Looking back, Trump’s influence over oil prices with his words has been ongoing for nearly a decade.

“Mouth Business”

Since 2011, Trump has been discussing oil prices on social media, long before he was president. He often criticized OPEC for manipulating the market. But criticizing is one thing; a real estate mogul venting on Twitter is different from manipulating oil prices.

What turned him from a commentator into a trader was a deal in 2020.

That year, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted, causing a global economic shutdown and a sharp decline in oil demand. To make matters worse, Saudi Arabia and Russia engaged in a price war, increasing production to grab market share, causing oil prices to fall below $20 per barrel. U.S. shale oil companies went bankrupt en masse, and the entire industry was in chaos.

Logically, low oil prices should benefit consumers—gasoline gets cheaper. A president concerned with voters’ interests would welcome that.

But Trump did the opposite.

He summoned oil company CEOs to the White House for a meeting. Then he personally called Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Russian President Putin, persuading them to cut production massively with OPEC. The goal was clear:

Push oil prices back up.

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

Why save oil prices? Because the struggling shale oil CEOs were his biggest political donors.

According to reports, oil magnate Harold Hamm saw his personal assets evaporate by $3 billion during the oil price crash, and then lobbied Trump to intervene. NBC’s headline at the time was straightforward: “Trump wanted to lower oil prices, but now he’s talking to oil executives about raising them.”

The essence of this deal: global consumers paid higher prices, profits flowed to his political donors, and he personally gained campaign funds.

If this had ended there, it could be classified as a “political interest exchange.” But Trump did something no politician would—he openly admitted it.

At subsequent rallies, he repeatedly told supporters:

“We drove oil prices too low, so we had to rescue the oil companies. I called OPEC, I called Russia and Saudi Arabia, and told them to raise the prices.”

The crowd cheered loudly.

Image source: Visual Capitalist

In 2023, the academic journal Energy Policy published a paper tracing all of Trump’s social media posts related to oil from his 2015 campaign announcement to his account being banned in 2021.

The conclusion: His tweets indeed had a quantifiable impact on WTI crude futures prices and significantly amplified speculative activity.

In other words, academia confirmed what all traders already knew: this man’s words can move global oil prices. And the story of 2020 proved he not only can but is willing to do so, motivated not by national interest but by his own financial network.

From his first term to now, Trump’s oil trading tools have evolved. Twitter became Truth Social, and criticizing OPEC turned into pausing strikes on Iran…

But the logic has never changed: using the president’s unique information advantage and policy power to create price volatility in the world’s largest commodity market.

From Mouth to Hand

Over the past decade, Trump has profited from “influence” in the oil market.

His words—others profit, others lose—while he gains political capital. But by 2026, this business’s nature began to shift.

In early March, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg separately reported the same news: Trump’s two sons, Donald Jr. and Eric Trump, are investing in a military drone company called Powerus.

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

He joined this company in November 2024, just weeks after his father won the election. Prior to that, he had no experience in drones or the defense industry.

Unusual Machines later secured a U.S. Army contract to produce 3,500 drone motors, with plans to add another 20,000 parts in 2026.

Donald Jr. is also a partner at the venture capital firm 1789 Capital, which, according to the Financial Times, had at least four portfolio companies receiving defense contracts from the Trump administration in 2025, totaling over $735 million.

Forbes estimates Donald Jr.'s personal net worth was about $50 million before his father took office in January 2025, and by year’s end, it had increased sixfold.

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

Drones became the hallmark weapon of this war. The New York Times reported that both U.S. and Iranian forces extensively used drones, with costs only a fraction of traditional missiles. The Pentagon is pushing an $1.1 billion procurement plan to deploy over 200,000 American-made attack drones by 2027.

A few days into the war, Eric Trump posted on X: “Drones are the future.”

Conflict of interest is obvious. A president’s son enters the defense industry after his father takes office, with the companies he invests in securing government contracts, while his father is fighting a war that heavily relies on those products.

Not just oil—Trump’s family business has expanded into warfare itself. Oil is how he makes money with his mouth; drones are how his son makes money with his hands.

Today is the first day of the pause. In five days, either negotiations succeed, the Strait of Hormuz reopens, and oil prices continue to fall; or no deal is reached, Iran keeps blocking the strait, and everything reverts to the status quo.

The world’s largest oil trader has issued a five-day option to the market. The strike price—war or peace—is unknown.

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

No matter the outcome, he won’t lose money.