The Trump Organization, Inc. is an American conglomerate. Privately owned by Donald Trump, it consists of most of Trump's business ventures and investments, with around 250 of its affiliates and subsidiaries using the Trump name. Donald Trump joined the organization in 1968, began leading it in 1971, renamed it around 1974, and handed off its leadership to his children in 2017 after he won the 2016 United States presidential election.
The Trump Organization, through its various constituent companies and partnerships, has or has had interests in real estate development, investing, brokerage, sales and marketing, and property management. Trump Organization entities own, operate, invest in, and develop hotels, residential real estate, resorts, residential towers, and golf courses in various countries.
They also operate or have operated in construction, hospitality, casinos, entertainment, book and magazine publishing, broadcast media, model management, retail, financial services, food and beverages, business education, online travel, commercial and private aviation, and beauty pageants. Trump Organization entities also own the New York television production company that produced the reality television franchise The Apprentice. Retail operations include or have included fashion apparel, jewelry and accessories, books, home furnishings, lighting products, bath textiles and accessories, bedding, home fragrance products, small leather goods, vodka, wine, barware, steaks, chocolate bars, and bottled spring water.
Because the Trump Organization's financial statements and Donald Trump's personal tax returns are private, the company's overall valuation is not publicly known, and published estimates have varied widely. Trump has released limited documentation supporting his public valuation claims. On several occasions, Trump has been accused of deliberately inflating the valuation of Trump Organization properties through aggressive lobbying of the media (in particular the authors of the annual Forbes 400 list) to bolster his perceived net worth.
By 2019, the Trump Organization was being scrutinized by New York investigators for possible financial fraud. In July 2021, New York prosecutors charged the organization with 10 counts in an alleged 15-year tax avoidance scheme. In November, The Washington Post reported that between 2011 and 2015 the organization presented several properties as being worth far more to potential lenders than to tax officials.
In August 2022, the organization's chief financial officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty to committing more than a dozen felonies, including criminal tax fraud and grand larceny.
In September 2022, New York attorney general Letitia James announced a civil lawsuit against the organization. A separate criminal case by the Manhattan district attorney was brought to trial in October; on December 6, the organization was convicted on 17 criminal charges.
In September 2023, the judge presiding over the civil suit ruled that Trump, his adult sons and the organization repeatedly committed fraud and ordered their New York business certificates canceled and their business entities sent into receivership for dissolution in what has been described by observers as a "corporate death penalty". Trump and the organization were ordered to pay nearly $355 million before interest in February 2024, with further restrictions placed on the Trump Organization's business certificates, and on both Trump and his adult sons' ability to do business in New York.
On March 25, 2024, the required payment was lowered to $175 million with a 10-day deadline. Trump posted the bond on April 1, 2024, thus ensuring that his assets and properties could not be seized until at least the time his appeals finished.
Contents
History
Background
Donald Trump's grandparents Frederick Trump and Elizabeth Christ Trump were a German immigrant couple who moved to the borough of Queens in 1907. Frederick began developing real estate there. He died during the "Spanish flu" pandemic in 1918, leaving an estate valued at $31,359 (or about $535,381 in 2020).
Elizabeth carried on in the real estate business after her husband's death. She had contractors build houses on the empty lots Frederick had owned, sold the houses, and earned income off the mortgages she provided to buyers.
Her middle child, Donald Trump's father Fred Trump, entered the carpentry trade after graduating high school in 1923. Fred would later say he completed his first single-family home in 1924, but other sources date his start as a builder to 1927. In that year, Fred reached the age of majority, and "E. Trump & Son", a name Elizabeth had used in ads since 1921, was formally incorporated.
In 1929, with Fred at the helm, the company began developing pricier houses in nearby Jamaica Estates. In the deepening depression, the company went out of business. In 1933 Fred opened a supermarket, called "Trump Market", then quickly sold it and returned to the real estate business. Around this same time, Fred Trump and a partner acquired the mortgage-servicing subsidiary of Brooklyn's J. Lehrenkrauss & Co., which had gone bankrupt and subsequently been broken up amid charges of fraud. This gave Trump access to the titles of many properties nearing foreclosure, which he bought at low cost and sold for a profit. He quickly became known as one of New York City's most successful young businessmen. In 1935, the company moved to Brooklyn, where, in addition to Queens, Trump was a prolific builder of single-family homes.
During World War II, Trump constructed apartments and temporary housing for military personnel in Virginia and Pennsylvania. In 1944, he shifted his focus back to Brooklyn and began planning to develop large apartment buildings. He opened the 1,344-unit Shore Haven complex in 1949, followed by Beach Haven in 1950 and Trump Village in 1964.
Leadership under Donald Trump
Donald Trump worked for his father's business while attending the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1968 officially joined the company. In the early 1970s, Fred gave himself the title chairman of the board and named Donald president of the company. Around 1973, Donald began referring to the business as the Trump Organization. The business had previously been referred to on occasion as the Fred C. Trump Organization, the Fred Trump Organization, or the Trump Organization, but had not had a single formal name.
In 1973, the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division filed a civil rights suit against the Trump Organization charging them for violating the 1968 Fair Housing Act by refusing to rent to Black people. The National Urban League had sent Black and White testers to apply for apartments in Trump-owned complexes. The White testers got the apartments, whereas the Black testers did not. According to court records, four superintendents or rental agents reported that applications sent to the central office for acceptance or rejection were coded by race.
A 1979 Village Voice article quoted a rental agent who said Fred Trump had instructed him not to rent to Black people and to encourage existing Black tenants to leave. In 1975, a consent decree described by the head of DOJ's housing division as "one of the most far-reaching ever negotiated" required Trump to advertise vacancies in minority papers and list vacancies with the Urban League. The Justice Department subsequently stated that continuing "racially discriminatory conduct by Trump agents has occurred with such frequency that it has created a substantial impediment to the full enjoyment of equal opportunity."
Donald Trump focused his efforts on major development projects in Manhattan, including the renovation of the Commodore Hotel, in partnership with Hyatt, as the Grand Hyatt New York (opened in 1980); the construction of Trump Tower in partnership with The Equitable (1983); and the development of Trump Plaza (1984). He also opened three casino hotels in Atlantic City, New Jersey: Trump Plaza (1984), Trump Castle (1985), and Trump Taj Mahal (1990).
In 1989, New York State officials ordered the Grand Hyatt New York, a hotel owned at the time by the Trump Organization and the Hyatt Corporation, to pay New York City $2.9 million in rent that had been withheld by the hotel in 1986 due to "unusual" accounting changes approved by Donald Trump. An investigation by New York City auditors noted that the hotel was missing basic financial records and found the hotel was using procedures that violated generally accepted accounting principles.
Trump first presidency, 2017–2021
On January 11, 2017, before starting his tenure as president of the United States, Trump announced that he and his daughter Ivanka would fully resign and his sons Donald Jr. and Eric would take executive charge of the various businesses, along with Chief Finance Officer Allen Weisselberg. Trump transferred his companies into a revocable trust, allowing him to tell the trustees how to run the company and fire them at any time.
Trump retained his financial stake in the business, despite having offered during the campaign to put all his assets in a blind trust should he win the presidency. His attorney at the time, Sheri Dillon, said Trump's assets would be overseen by an ethics officer, and that the Trump Organization would not pursue any new foreign business deals. Under the pre-inaugural management agreement, Forbes magazine reported in March 2017:The Trump Organization has curtailed some of its international work, pulling out of deals in Azerbaijan, Georgia and Brazil, while pledging to do no new foreign deals (though it has apparently resurrected an old deal in the Dominican Republic). Trump's international hotel licensing and management business makes up only $220 million of his estimated $3.5 billion fortune, but it's the most dynamic part of the Trump portfolio – and it throws off chunks of cash with virtually no risk. As the Trumps have wound down some international deals, they continue to push forward with new domestic agreements.
Eric Trump, in the Forbes article, discussed the "clear separation of church and state that we maintain" between the business and his father and said that with his father's presidency and related changes "[y]ou could look at it either way" in terms of business prospects. He also said that "he will continue to update his father on the business while he is in the presidency ... 'probably quarterly ... profitability reports and stuff like that'." The article quoted Larry Noble, general counsel of the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center and a former chief ethics officer at the Federal Election Commission, and President George W. Bush's former chief ethics lawyer, Richard Painter, as looking negatively at such multiple planned updates of Trump's businesses per year. Noble said in part "if he is now going to get reports from his son about the businesses, then he really isn't separate in any real way." Painter said in part "at the end of the day, he owns the business. He has the conflicts that come with it."
Also in March 2017, Forbes did a listing of all "36 mini-Trumps", as it termed the domestic and international partners – often described as "billionaires" – with whom the Trump Organization has worked over the years. Introducing the listing, the magazine reported that at least 14 of the partners attended Trump's inauguration and some of them paid for $18,000-a-night accommodations at the Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C., for the event.
Investigations for fraud and tax evasion
In August 2018, the Manhattan district attorney (DA) was reported to be considering criminal charges against the organization and two of its senior executives for their accounting of then-Trump personal attorney Michael Cohen's hush money payment to Stormy Daniels.
In October 2018, The New York Times published a lengthy exposé concerning Donald Trump's inheritance from his parents, Fred and Mary Anne MacLeod Trump. It includes detailed analyses of Trump family financial records. The article describes an alleged tax fraud scheme conducted by Trump and his siblings related to their joint inheritance of their parents's real estate holdings, effectively evading over $500 million in gift and estate taxes. The alleged schemes involved siphoning money from the companies to the children throughout their lives and understating the value of transferred properties. In mid-2021, Mary L. Trump (a primary source for the exposé) elaborated on how the organization used a shell corporation to siphon money, devaluing Fred Trump's "core business" to $30 million at the time of his death.
Michael Cohen testified to Congress in February 2019 that Trump "inflated [the organization's] total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed amongst the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes." Following Cohen's testimony, the New York State Department of Financial Services issued a subpoena to Aon, the organization's longtime insurance broker. By September 2019, the organization was under federal investigation by the Southern District of New York regarding inflated insurance claims allegations.
In January 2020, D.C. Attorney General, Karl Racine sued the organization and Trump's inaugural committee on the basis that it had funneled nonprofit funding intended for the inauguration to the Trumps via event accommodations and a private party costing several hundred thousand dollars at the Trump Hotel. Ivanka Trump testified in December 2020 that she had little to no involvement in the event, which Mother Jones reported in June 2021 was false. Donald Jr. similarly made key statements in his February 2021 testimony which Mother Jones reported in April 2021 were false. In November 2021, a D.C. Superior Court judge dismissed a portion of the lawsuit and dropped the organization as a defendant. Later that month, Racine filed a motion requesting for the organization to be reinstated as a defendant. In February 2022, this request was granted. In May, it was reported that the organization and inaugural committee, which both denied wrongdoing, would pay a $750,000 settlement which will benefit two D.C.-based nonprofits.
IRS audit
In 2024, the New York Times and ProPublica reported that the Internal Revenue Service investigated whether Trump had twice written off losses of his Trump International Hotel and Tower (Chicago) through construction cost overruns, lagging sales, and selling residential units below value. In his 2008 tax return, he declared the property to be worthless. The two publications calculated that – of the total deduction of $697 million Trump claimed that year – up to $651 million were based on the property's worthlessness. In 2010, he passed ownership of the property from one of his business entities to another one and claimed another $168 million for the next 10 years. The publications, "in consultation with tax experts, calculated that the revision sought by the IRS would create a new tax bill of more than $100 million, plus interest and potential penalties".
"Corporate death penalty"
In September 2023, Arthur Engoron, the judge presiding over the civil suit, ruled that Trump, his adult sons and the organization repeatedly committed fraud and ordered their New York business certificates canceled and their business entities sent into receivership for dissolution in what has been described by observers as a "corporate death penalty".
Lawsuit against Capital One bank
In 2021, Capital One closed more than 300 Trump Organization bank accounts, saying that "[t]he closures were the result of months of analysis and a careful review by Capital One's AML team in accordance with bank policies and regulatory guidance". In March 2025, the Trump Organization sued the bank in Florida federal court, stating the bank closed the accounts for political reasons. The bank's filing in response said that the accounts' transactions were reviewed by anti-money-laundering experts who found the transaction patterns were "among the types of activity flagged by federal banking guidance".
Real estate
As of 2019, Trump's net worth (as estimated by Forbes) was $3.1 billion, with about half of that coming from his New York City real estate holdings, and about a third coming from his national and international properties (including hotels and golf courses). Licensing fees paid by outside owners for using Trump's name on their properties also contribute to his overall net worth.
Selected completed properties
Trump Tower, 725 Fifth Avenue, Midtown Manhattan: A 58-story mixed-use tower, the headquarters of the Trump Organization, was developed in partnership with The Equitable, and opened in 1983. Trump bought out the Equitable's stake in 1986, and now owns the office and retail components of the tower. The building also contains the three-story penthouse apartment that was Donald Trump's primary residence until he moved to the White House. The value of the tower was estimated at $450 million in 2017. Trump took out a $100 million mortgage on the building in 2012.
Trump World Tower, 845 United Nations Plaza, also in Midtown Manhattan: In 2006, Forbes magazine estimated "$290 million in profits and unrealized appreciation" going to Trump.
AXA Financial Center in Manhattan and 555 California Street in San Francisco: Trump owns a 30 percent stake in these two office buildings, resulting from a property swap involving Riverside South. Trump's stake in the two buildings was estimated to be at least $850 million as of 2013.
The Trump Building at 40 Wall Street: Trump bought this building's leasehold in 1995 and renovated the structure for $1 million. The pre-tax net operating income at the building as of 2011 was $20.89 million and is valued between $350 million and $400 million, according to the New York Department of Finance. Trump took out a $160 million mortgage attached to the property with an interest rate of 5.71% to use for other investments. Forbes valued the property at $260 million in 2006.
Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago: The entire project is valued at $1.2 billion ($112 million stake for Trump).
Trump International Hotel Las Vegas: A joint development with fellow Forbes 400 members, Phil Ruffin ("key partner"), and Jack Wishna ("minority partner"). In 2006, Trump's stake was estimated at $162 million. In Forbes in March 2017, the Trump International Las Vegas was described as a 50-50 partnership between Donald Sr. and Ruffin, with Eric as the primary manager for the Trump Organization.
Trump International Hotel and Tower New York: Trump provided his name and expertise to the building's owner (GE) during the building's re-development in 1994 for a fee totaling $40 million ($25 million for project management and $15 million in incentives deriving from the condo sales). Forbes values Trump's stake at $12 million. In March 2010, the penthouse apartment at Trump International Hotel & Tower in New York City sold for $33 million.
Skating rinks
In 1986, Trump rebuilt the deteriorating Wollman Rink two months ahead of schedule and $750,000 under the $2.5 million price ceiling imposed by the city. Trump asked his contractors, among them HRH Construction, to do the work without making a profit, promising them publicity but not mentioning their contributions to the press afterwards. Trump was given a concession to operate the rink for a year, with the profits to be given to charity. In 1987, as part of the agreement to keep operating Wollman Rink, the Trump Organization agreed to also take a concession for the Lasker Rink; they held the concessions until 1995.
In 2001, a Trump-owned subsidiary, Wollman Rink Operations LLC, won another concession to operate the rinks until April 30, 2021. Wollman Rink Operations LLC is owned by DJT Holdings LLC which was owned by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust for the duration of Trump's presidency. The Trump name was prominently displayed on the walls of the Wollman Rink and on the Zamboni maintaining the ice. In 2019, the Trump Organization replaced the name with Wollman Rink logos. In his financial disclosure filed in May 2018, Trump reported nearly $35 million in income from the two rinks since 2015.
The Trump Organization's contract to operate the rinks expired in April 2021.
Trump Winery
Trump Winery is a winery situated on Trump Vineyard Estates near Charlottesville, Virginia. It is valued between $5 million and $25 million.
The vineyard was purchased by Trump in April 2011 from Patricia Kluge, the widow of John Kluge. The property was distressed. and was officially opened in October 2011. Trump Winery is situated in the Monticello Wine Trail. Trump's son Eric was a partner in the purchase.
After purchasing the property, Trump turned over management of the winery to his son.
Golf courses
The Trump Organization owns or manages sixteen golf courses in the United States, Scotland, Ireland, and the United Arab Emirates. As of 2015, Trump listed income of at least $176 million in an 18-month span from his golf courses – about 41% of the low-end estimate of his income.
Trump International Golf Club, West Palm Beach, Florida
Trump National Doral Miami: An 800-acre (320 ha) resort with five golf courses, 700 hotel rooms, a spa, meeting spaces, and retail outlets. Trump bought the property out of bankruptcy in 2012 for $150 million, and has spent over $250 million on renovations. Its value has been estimated at over $1 billion, and there was a $125 million mortgage on the property as of 2013.
Trump National Golf Club, Bedminster, New Jersey
Trump National Golf Club, Charlotte, North Carolina
Trump National Golf Club, Colts Neck, New Jersey
Trump National Golf Club, Hudson Valley, New York
Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, Florida
Trump National Golf Club, Los Angeles
Trump National Golf Club, Philadelphia
Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C., Potomac Falls, Virginia
Trump National Golf Club, Westchester, New York
Trump International Golf Club, Dubai: A golf course owned by Damac Properties and managed by the Trump Organization. Located in the Damac Hills residential development, it opened in 2017. Trump's involvement with Damac head Hussain Sajwani has been cited as a source of possible conflicts of interest for Trump's presidency.
Real estate licensing
Many developers pay Donald Trump to market their properties and be the public face for their projects. For that reason, Trump does not own many of the buildings that display his name. According to Forbes, this portion of Trump's empire, actually run by his children, has a valuation of $562 million. According to Forbes, there were 33 licensing projects under development including seven "condo hotels" (the seven Trump International Hotel and Tower developments). As of 2013, Trump had generated more than $74 million in real estate licensing deals and had $823.3 million worth of real estate in joint ventures.
Manhattan:
Trump Palace: 200 East 69th Street, New York, NY.
Trump Parc and Trump Parc East: Two adjoining buildings on Central Park South on the southwest corner of The Avenue of the Americas. Trump Parc East is a 14-story apartment building and Trump Parc (the former Barbizon Plaza Hotel) is a 38-story condominium building.
Trump Plaza: 167 East 61st Street, New York, NY (36-story, Y-shaped plan condominium building on the Upper East Side)
610 Park Avenue (Old Mayfair Hotel): Trump is helping with the construction and development of this property for Colony NorthStar.
Trump SoHo: Former name of The Dominick, originally a partnership with Bayrock Group. The SoHo hotel was rebranded following the Trump Organization's exit from the project. "Russian-born" Felix Sater was listed as an employee of Bayrock when the partnership was born. Sater had served time in prison for injuries he inflicted in a bar fight before the Soho partnership.
New York City suburbs:
Trump Bay Street: A 447-unit rental apartment building in Jersey City with the real estate development company, Kushner Properties and The KABR Group.
Trump Plaza: An apartment tower located adjacent to Trump Bay Street.
Former properties
Central Park Carousel: In 2010, Trump took over the management of the merry-go-round located in Manhattan's Central Park, promising to revive it after its previous operator was removed by the city's parks department. The carousel generated $589,000 from annual admissions. The Trump Organization had a contract to operate the carousel through April 2021, and was awarded to another company in 2021.
Empire State Building: Trump acquired 50 percent ownership of the iconic skyscraper in 1994. After failed efforts to gain control of the building by evicting the master leaseholder, he and his partner sold the building in 2002.
General Motors Building at Trump International Plaza: Trump partnered with Conseco to buy the 50-story Manhattan office building in 1998, and then attached his name to it. The building was sold in 2003.
Grand Hyatt New York: Trump partnered with Hyatt to purchase and renovate the historic Commodore Hotel. They reopened the hotel in 1980. Trump sold his stake to Hyatt in 1996.
Plaza Hotel: A historic hotel in Manhattan. Trump purchased it in 1988. He gave up half of his ownership in a 1992 bankruptcy case, and sold the rest in 1995.
Hotel St. Moritz: Trump bought this Manhattan hotel in 1985 for $72 million, and then sold it in 1988 for $180 million.
Maison de L'Amitie: A 43,000-square-foot (4,000 m2) oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump purchased this property for $41 million at a bankruptcy auction in 2004, renovated it for what he said was $3 million, then sold it to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for $95 million in 2008. The property had been appraised at $58.1 million in 2007. The property was at the time the most expensive house ever sold in the United States. Discussing the buyer of the property with a reporter for The Palm Beach Post as the sale was pending, Trump told her, "Don't say Russian"; the paper reported the buyer as "foreign". The sale was examined by the Mueller special counsel investigation in 2017.
Scion and American Idea hotels
Early in the Trump presidency, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. announced the creation of two new signature hotel brands, Scion and American Idea, as "the next generation of the company". After initially announcing as many as thirty potential deals in their pipeline, the ventures were scrapped in early 2019, with only one uncompleted hotel in Mississippi.
Other ventures and investments
Trump owns a wide variety of other enterprises outside real estate (which had an estimated 2013 value of $317.6 million). Other investments include a 17.2% stake in Parker Adnan, Inc. (formerly AdnanCo Group), a Bermuda-based financial services holdings company. He took in $1.1 million in men's wear licensing royalties. Trump earns $15,000 to $100,000 in book royalties and $2.2 million for his involvement with Trump Model Management every year. Until 2015, Trump owned the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants, collectively worth $15 million.
Trump has marketed his name on a large number of products and services achieving mixed success doing so. Though not all subsidiaries of the organization, some of Trump's external entrepreneurial and investment ventures include or have included:
Trump Princess superyacht, construction of world's biggest yacht, and shipyard ownership. In 1987, Trump bought a superyacht, originally built for Adnan Khashoggi, from the Sultan of Brunei and renamed it the Trump Princess. He leased it to the Trump's Castle hotel and casino. It was berthed in Atlantic City and used for events by the Castle and other Trump enterprises. In 1989, he put the yacht up for sale and commissioned the world's biggest yacht to be built at Amsel Holland BV, a small shipyard in a Dutch fishing village. Construction began in November 1989. In April 1990, Trump bought the shipyard to ensure the work would continue. In June, the Dutch insurer for the lines of credit of several companies involved in the construction cancelled their default insurances, and work was halted. In July 1990, Trump sold the shipyard.
Trump Financial (mortgage firm)
Trump Sales and Leasing (residential sales)
Trump International Realty (residential and commercial real estate brokerage firm)
The Trump Entrepreneur Initiative (for profit business education company, formerly called Trump University)[1]
Trump Restaurants (located in Trump Tower and consisting of Trump Buffet, Trump Catering, Trump Ice Cream Parlor, and Trump Bar)
ACN, Inc.
From 2005 to 2015, Trump was paid $8.8 million for promoting multi-level marketing telecommunications company ACN Inc. and its products on ACN's website, promotional DVDs and at their events, and on his The Apprentice reality-TV show.
In 2018, four investors filed a federal civil lawsuit in the Southern District of New York against Donald Trump and his children Donald Jr., Ivanka, and Eric for fraud and racketeering. In July 2019, a district judge permitted the lawsuit to proceed with state-level claims of fraud, false advertising, and unfair competition. The Trumps were accused of not having disclosed that they were being paid by ACN when they recommended the company as a sound investment. As part of the discovery process, the Trumps were ordered in March 2020 to provide information from Trump Organization business records back to 2005.
In April 2020, a federal judge ordered MGM, the majority owner of Celebrity Apprentice, to release unaired tapes of two episodes of the show to the attorneys of plaintiffs who accused the four Trumps of misleading them to invest in ACN; in the episodes, celebrity contestants competed to produce commercials for an ACN product. The Trumps appealed the ruling and unsuccessfully sought to deal with the dispute via arbitration. In November 2021, a federal judge ordered MGM to make the tapes available to the plaintiffs' attorneys at a secure location.
Trump and his children were deposed in 2022. In May 2023, the plaintiffs withdrew their claims against the children in order to "streamline the dispute ahead of a trial". The trial is scheduled for January 29, 2024.
Coats of arms
Donald Trump has used a number of logos in the style of coats of arms for his businesses.
Joseph E. Davies, third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post and a former U.S. ambassador of Welsh origins, was granted a coat of arms, bearing the motto Integritas, by British heraldic authorities in 1939. After Donald Trump purchased Mar-a-Lago, the Florida estate built by Merriweather Post, in 1985, the Trump Organization started using Davies's coat of arms at Trump golf courses and estates across the country. A differenced version of the Davies arms were also registered with the U.S. patent and trademark office. The modified arms are what is currently used by Trump and his organizations, outside the British Isles.
Shield
Argent ermined Or, two Chevronels couped between three demi-Lions, all Or.
Crest
A Cubit Arm erected Argent, enfiling a Mascle and holding a Spear point upward, all Or.
In 2008, Trump attempted to establish the American logo at his new Trump International Golf Links in Balmedie, Scotland, but was warned by the Lord Lyon King of Arms, the highest authority for Scottish heraldry, that an act of the Scottish Parliament from 1672 disallows people using unregistered arms. In January 2012, shortly after the inauguration of the golf course, Trump unveiled the new coat of arms that had been granted to "The Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd" by the Lord Lyon in 2011.
Sarah Malone, executive vice-president of "The Trump International Golf Links, Scotland", said that "the coat of arms brings together visual elements that signify different aspects of the Trump family heritage [...], the Lion Rampant [in the crest] makes reference to Scotland and the stars to America. Three chevronels are used to denote the sky, sand dunes and sea – the essential components of the site, and the double-[headed] Eagle represents the dual nature and nationality of Trump's heritage (Scottish and German). The Eagle clutches golf balls making reference to the great name of golf, and the motto Numquam Concedere is Latin for Never Give Up – Trump's philosophy."