Donald Trump Biography

Reality Television Star, U.S. President, Business Leader (1946–)

Billionaire real estate mogul and former reality television personality Donald Trump is the 45th president of the United States.

Who Is Donald Trump?

Donald John Trump is the 45th and current President of the United States; he took office January 20, 2017. Previously, he was a real estate mogul, and a former reality TV star. 

Born in Queens, New York, in 1946, Trump became involved in large, profitable building projects in Manhattan. In 1980, he opened the Grand Hyatt New York, which made him the city's best-known developer. 

In 2004, Trump began starring in the hit NBC reality series The Apprentice, which also spawned the offshoot The Celebrity Apprentice. Trump turned his attention to politics, and in 2015 he announced his candidacy for president of the United States on the Republican ticket. 

After winning a majority of the primaries and caucuses, Trump became the official Republican candidate for president on July 19, 2016. That November, Trump was elected the 45th President of the United States, after defeating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Donald Trump was born on June 14, 1946, in Queens, New York. 

Net Worth

According to a September 2017 Forbes estimate, Donald Trump’s net worth is $3.1 billion. Of that, $1.6 billion is in New York real estate; $570 million is in golf clubs and resorts; $500 million is in non-New York real estate; $290 million is in cash and personal assets; and $200 million is in brand businesses. That’s down from $3.7 billion in 2016, according to Fortune, mostly due to declining New York real estate values.

Over the years, Trump’s net worth has been a subject of public debate. In 1990, Trump asserted his own net worth in the neighborhood of $1.5 billion. However, the real estate market was in decline, reducing the value of and income from Trump's empire; a Forbes magazine investigation into his assets revealed that his existing debt likely brought the number closer to $500 million. 

In any event, the Trump Organization required a massive infusion of loans to keep it from collapsing, a situation which raised questions as to whether the corporation could survive bankruptcy. Some observers saw Trump's decline as symbolic of many of the business, economic and social excesses that had arisen in the 1980s.

Donald Trump eventually managed to climb back from a reported deficit of nearly $900 million, claiming to have reached a zenith of more than $2 billion. However, independent sources again questioned his math, estimating his worth at something closer to $500 million by 1997.

Over the course of his 2016 presidential run, Trump’s net worth was questioned, and he courted controversy after repeatedly refusing to release his tax returns while they were being audited by the Internal Revenue Service. He did not release his tax returns before the November election — the first time a major party candidate had not released such information to the public since Richard Nixon in 1972. 

Donald Trump attends the 'All Star Celebrity Apprentice' finale in 2013 in New York City. (Photo: Michael Stewart/WireImage)

Religion

Donald Trump was raised Presbyterian by his mother, and he identifies as a mainline Protestant.

Family

Father

The fourth of five children, Donald Trump’s parents were Frederick C. and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. Frederick Trump was a builder and real estate developer who specialized in constructing and operating middle-income apartments in Queens, Staten Island and Brooklyn. 

Mother

Mary MacLeod immigrated from Tong, Scotland, in 1929 at the age of 17. She married Fred Trump in 1936, and the couple settled in Jamaica, Queens, a neighborhood that was, at the time, filled with Western European immigrants. 

In the 1950s the Trumps’ wealth increased with the postwar real estate boom, and Mary became a New York socialite and philanthropist. Fred died in 1999, and Mary passed away the following year.

Wife and Kids

Donald J. Trump has had three wives and is currently married to former Slovenian model Melania Trump (née Knauss), over 23 years his junior. In January 2005, the couple married in a highly-publicized and lavish wedding. 

Among the many celebrity guests at the wedding were Hillary Clinton and former President Bill Clinton. Melania gave birth to their son, Barron William Trump, in March 2006.

Ivana Trump

In 1977, Trump married his first wife Ivana Trump, (née Zelnickova Winklmayr) a New York fashion model who had been an alternate on the 1972 Czech Olympic Ski Team. After the 1977 birth of the couple's first of three children, Donald Trump Jr., Ivana Trump was named vice president in charge of design in the Trump Organization and played a major role in supervising the renovation of the Commodore and the Plaza Hotel. 

The couple had two more children together — Ivanka Trump (born 1981) and Eric Trump (born 1984) — and went through a highly publicized divorce which was finalized in 1992.

Marla Maples

In 1993 Trump married his second wife, Marla Maples, an actress with whom he had been involved for some time and already had a daughter, Tiffany Trump (born in 1993). 

Trump would ultimately file for a highly publicized divorce from Maples in 1997, which became final in June 1999. A prenuptial agreement allotted $2 million to Maples.

Trump's sons — Donald Jr. and Eric— work as executive vice presidents for The Trump Organization, and took over the family business while their father serves as president. 

Trump's daughter Ivanka was also an executive vice president of The Trump Organization, but left the business and her own fashion label to join her father's administration and become an unpaid assistant to the president. Her husband, Jared Kushner, is also a senior adviser to President Trump.

Donald Trump gives two thumbs up to the crowd on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention on July 21, 2016 at the Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Donald was an energetic, assertive child. His parents sent him to the New York Military Academy at age 13, hoping the discipline of the school would channel his energy in a positive manner. 

Donald Trump is currently the only declared Republican candidate for the 2020 Presidential election.

Information for this biography was received from Biography.com. You may visit their website (link below)  for a more complete treatment. We thank them for their public service and encourage you to support them and their advertisers.

 https://www.biography.com/people/donald-trump-9511238.