Donald Trump’s personal investments in Elon Musk’s companies loom over all of his cringeworthy associations with his favorite billionaire.

Trump’s new financial disclosure underscores why all of the president’s interactions with Musk and his aerospace company, SpaceX, seem like self-enrichment ploys — rather than just the president enriching a political ally.

Why? Because the president’s personal fortune is partially tied to Musk’s business success. And given this, Trump’s recent efforts to portray the tech mogul — someone who routinely engages in bigotry — as though he is an industrial genius make more sense.

As voters increasingly sour on government corruption and money in politics, Trump has made more stock trades during his second term than every member of Congress combined — including massive investments in businesses that have profited off his agenda, such as private prison companies, oil companies and artificial intelligence companies.

His dealings include an investment of at least $1 million in Musk’s SpaceX, too — and as much as $5 million.

As CNN reported:

Just two days before launching an effort to slash red tape for commercial space transportation, President Donald Trump last month purchased up to $5 million of bonds issued by SpaceX, a major federal contractor run by Elon Musk, according to ethics filings made public on Thursday.

The SpaceX bond buy was among 517 trades Trump made in August, transactions that spotlight conflict of interest concerns that have hovered over his presidency.

CNN added that Trump “purchased up to $25 million of Meta shares, up to $6 million of Microsoft stock and a smaller amount of Oracle shares, filings show.” His previous financial disclosure forms showed he bought and sold shares of SpaceX stock in July as well.

Meta, Oracle and Microsoft are heavily invested in the race to develop AI tools and have faced bipartisan backlash as opposition to data centers has mounted. Trump, while holding stock in these companies, has sought to block regulation of data centers and suggested that AI companies should be allowed to engage in “self-policing.”

Trump’s SpaceX investments are particularly suspect when you consider the ways his administration has sought to incorporate the company into the war economy he and his family are profiting from. The Pentagon recently named Musk as one of three chairs on a newly created board that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says will devise plans for the U.S. military to “achieve absolute technological dominance,” and it seems fair to assume SpaceX will benefit in some way.

The White House told CNN that Trump’s stock and bond portfolio is managed independently by third-party financial institutions and that the president and his family have no ability to be involved with transactions.

“There are no conflicts of interest,” White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said.

From where I stand, that rationale just sounds like one of the “stupidest” things Trump said he utters and expects his followers to eat up.

Trump’s investments in SpaceX are seemingly a perfect example of his brazen self-enrichment — and also a political liability. Democrats will have committed political malpractice if they don’t spotlight these trades involving the massively unpopular president and Musk -— who’s quite unpopular himself —- in the weeks remaining before the midterms.

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