Trump, the World's Largest Oil Trader

Original Title: "Trump, the World's Biggest Oil Trader"

Original Author: David, DeepTech TechFlow

How much is a post really worth?

At 7:05 am ET on March 23, Trump posted an all-caps message on Truth Social, essentially stating that the U.S. and Iran had engaged in a "very good, productive dialogue" over the past two days. He had ordered a pause in strikes on Iranian power plants and energy facilities for five days.

When this post was made, the U.S. stock market had not yet opened. However, the futures market is real-time.

Within minutes, Dow futures surged over 1000 points, S&P 500 futures rose by 2.7%. Brent crude oil plummeted from $113 per barrel straight to $98, a drop of over 13%.

A journalist from the well-known foreign media outlet Fortune Magazine later calculated that from the time the post was made to the market's digestion, the total market cap of U.S. stocks increased by approximately $1.7 trillion.

If you were an ordinary trader and posted a message on social media about oil supply, causing a 13% global oil price drop, regulatory authorities would surely come knocking within 24 hours.

But if you are the U.S. President, this is called diplomacy.

Then Iran said: "We did not talk to him."

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

"Every Monday when the market opens, Trump makes this kind of statement to suppress oil prices. This time, the five-day deadline coincidentally fell on the market's closing day of the energy market trading week."

The news reached the U.S., and the market gave back almost half of its gains. But by the close, the Dow was still up by 631 points, Brent crude oil settled at $99.94, marking the first time it had dropped below $100 since March 11. In other words, the market chose to believe Trump's version, or at least half of it.

One post, one hour, trillions of dollars swinging back and forth.

This is less like a president making a diplomatic statement and more like the world's largest oil trader placing an order.

Moreover, the tool in his hand is not a futures contract, it's the US military and Truth Social social media. 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 was made, around 6:50 am New York time, both S&P 500 futures and crude oil futures saw a sudden surge in trading volume.

In the thin liquidity of the pre-market period, this sudden, isolated volume spike was very conspicuous.

15 minutes later, after the post was made, the oil price plunged, and the stock index surged. In other words, whoever took action at 6:50 a.m. made money after 7:05 a.m. In the commodity market, accurately establishing a position ahead of major news is one of the most classic forms of insider trading.

Image Source: CNBC, S&P 500 Pre-market Trading Volume

In April last year, when Trump's flip-flopping on tariff policy caused market turmoil, Senator Adam Schiff publicly questioned: Who knew what the president was going to say before he posted? No one answered that time.

This time, CNBC contacted the SEC and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, and the response from both organizations was identical: no comment.

And this is not the first time. Looking back, Trump has been moving the oil price with his mouth for almost a decade.

Mouth Business

Trump has been talking about oil prices on social media since 2011, when he was not yet president, and criticizing OPEC for market manipulation was one of his daily topics. But criticizing aside, a real estate businessman ranting on Twitter is one thing, manipulating the oil price is another.

What truly turned him from a “commentator” to a “trader” was a trade in 2020.

At the beginning of that year, the COVID-19 pandemic broke out, the global economy came to a standstill, and oil demand plummeted. To make matters worse, Saudi Arabia and Russia engaged in a price war, increasing production to grab market share, driving the oil price down to just over $20 per barrel. US shale oil companies collapsed in large numbers, leaving the entire industry in ruins.

By normal logic, low oil prices are good for consumers - everyone gets cheaper gas. A president who cares about voter interests should be happy about it.

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 Putin, persuading them to join OPEC in a large-scale production cut. The goal was one and only:

to push the oil price back up.

He then tweeted, hinting that a production cut agreement was imminent, causing WTI crude oil to skyrocket by 25% that day, marking the largest single-day surge in history.

Why rescue the oil price? Because those shale oil company bosses on the brink of collapse are his biggest political donors.

According to public reports, oil tycoon Harold Hamm saw his personal assets evaporate by $3 billion in a few days during the oil price collapse, prompting him to lobby Trump for intervention. The headline on NBC at the time was quite straightforward: "Trump originally wanted to push down oil prices, but now he is discussing how to raise prices with oil executives."

The nature of this deal is: global consumers foot the bill for higher oil prices, the profits flow to his political donors, and he himself receives the next round of campaign funds.

If this ended here, it could still be classified as "political interest exchange." But Trump did something no politician would do - he publicly admitted it.

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

"We dropped the oil price too low, we had to go save the oil companies. I called OPEC, I called Russia and Saudi, and told them the price has to go up."

The audience below applauded thunderously.

Image Source: Visual Capitalist

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

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

In other words, academia has used data to confirm something all traders have long known: this person's words can move global oil prices. And the story of 2020 proved that he not only can, he is willing to, and his motivation is not national interest but his own network of interests.

From his first term to the present, Trump's oil trading tools have been upgraded. Twitter has turned into Truth Social, and bashing OPEC has turned into pausing bombing Iran...

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

From Words to Deeds

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

With a move of his mouth, others gain, others lose, and he gains political capital. But in 2026, the nature of this business began to change.

In early March of this year, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg 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 a drone parts company, Unusual Machines, holding about 330,000 shares worth about $4 million.

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

Unusual Machines later received a contract from the U.S. Army to produce 3,500 drone motors, with the military stating they will add 20,000 more components in 2026.

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

Forbes estimates that Donald Jr.'s personal net worth was around 50 million USD in January 2025, which multiplied sixfold by the end of the year.

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

Drones were the iconic weapon of this war. According to The New York Times, both the US and Iran were extensively using drones, with a cost per drone being just a fraction of a traditional missile. The Pentagon is advancing an 11 billion USD procurement plan with the goal of deploying over 200,000 US-manufactured attack drones by 2027.

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

The conflict of interest is obvious. A president's son entering the defense industry after his father's inauguration, with the invested company receiving contracts from his father's government, while his father is waging a war heavily consuming these companies' products.

More than oil, the Trump family business has expanded into the war itself. Oil was the money he made with his mouth, and drones were the money his son made with his hands.

Today marks the first day of the ceasefire. Five days later, either negotiations yield results, the Strait of Hormuz reopens, and oil prices continue to fall; or nothing is agreed upon, Iran continues to block the strait, and everything reverts to square one.

The world's largest oil trader issued a five-day options contract to the market. The exercise price is war or peace, and nobody knows.

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

Regardless of the outcome, he won't lose money.

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