Donald Trump may very well go down as the most successful con artist in human history. That said, the undeniable reality about Trump is that he’s an absolutely incompetent businessman, and his success and wealth have been built on various scams and the fact that he’s a very effective con artist.
Here’s just a short list of some of Trump’s business failures:
Trump Taj Mahal (a casino)
Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino
Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts
Trump Shuttle
GoTrump
Trump Vodka
Trump Steaks
Trump Water
Trump Magazine
Trump University
Trump Mortgage
Trump: The Game
Trump Airline
Now we can effectively add Trump Mobile to that list of failures as well, with Trump Media not too far behind, as that grift has gone from a stock high of $97 to $6.99 as of the time of writing this on October 17, 2026.
The only success he’s had has largely been based on marketing a lie. That lie being that he’s a “massively successful businessman.”
The Apprentice? He played a fake CEO with fake employees doing fake tasks, where he fake-fired them in a reality TV show designed around a cartoonish boss character meant to entertain audiences through trash television.
It was literally a show based on an incompetent CEO masquerading as a successful one based on Trump’s reputation.
While he’s won the presidency twice, both of his campaigns were built on lies.
Mexico didn’t pay for the wall; he’s never released a health care plan; he didn’t “very easily” pay off the national debt; he never released his tax returns; he absolutely knew what Project 2025 was despite his repeated denials; he didn’t “lower prices on Day 1”; he hasn’t “ended inflation”; he didn’t end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours”; he didn’t cut energy prices “in half” within 12 months; he did start the war in Iran he promised he wouldn’t start; his tariffs were mostly paid for by American consumers; and even his immigration policy, built on the claim that “most illegal immigrants are violent criminals,” was obviously an absolute lie.
His current massive growth in wealth since he returned as president has been driven by his crypto scam and his sons’ abuse of his position of power to broker business deals with people who are looking to be viewed favorably by the President of the United States.
His wealth isn’t increasing because of some “genius business expertise” — it’s because he’s an unethical, corrupt con artist who is in an extraordinary position of power to abuse for his own personal enrichment.
And boy, has he: $2 billion in net worth growth in just his first year back as president.
The Trump Mobile phone is a prime example of just how inept the Trump family is when it comes to actual business success versus a scam.
I am a bit of a tech nerd. I know a decent amount about cell phones and cellular service. The moment Trump claimed he was going to produce a phone for $600 that would be “built completely in the United States,” I knew that was complete bullsh*t. There was absolutely no way they were going to do that — because that’s not how that industry works. And since its launch, all they’ve mostly done is sell refurbished iPhones and other Android phones.
Meanwhile, the “T1” phone they’re selling isn’t made in the United States — it’s a mid-range Android phone built overseas, and it’s not selling for $600, it’s $749, despite being a rebranded phone you can buy for much less because the technology it uses is old.
There’s also no evidence anywhere that Trump is in the process of building a manufacturing plant to produce a future phone here. In other words, the entire thing is just another grift.
From the very beginning, I called this out for the scam that it is. Here’s what I wrote the day it was announced on June 16, 2025:
“This is just another Trump Steaks, Trump Vodka, Trump — whatever. It’s a branding grift to make money offering a low-end budget phone at a mid-range price, and a phone service that’s nearly as expensive as a traditional plan that’s really just your typical prepaid offering people can get for less than half the price through providers such as Visible or Mint.
It’s a con artist doing what a con artist is going to do: abusing his power as president to rip people off because he knows there are enough gullible MAGA cultists who will run toward this overpriced pile of junk just like they did his China-made Bibles and vastly overpriced cheap red MAGA hats.”
Which is exactly what it turned out to be, as roughly 600,000 members of the MAGA base gave President Con Artist their $100 deposits for a phone that will not be built in the United States — they’ve already removed that language from the website — and is essentially just a rebranded, cheap Android phone that anyone could buy online, probably built in China but unquestionably imported, for about half the price Trump Mobile is selling the “T1” for.
That’s what Donald Trump and his family are: marketing grifters looking for their next con to scam people out of money.
Ask the folks who enrolled in Trump University, another fraudulent venture where this president was forced to pay millions after defrauding people out of money.
Then there’s the Donald J. Trump Foundation, which he was forced to shut down after he was caught stealing money from this so-called “charity” for his own personal use — a “charity” whose records show he hadn’t even donated to in over a decade.
That’s one of the main reasons why he doesn’t want to release his tax returns. It’s not just because he wants to hide his shady business dealings and exploitation of the tax system; it’s that he doesn’t want everyone to realize that, despite all his big talk about his “faith” and how much he “loves and respects veterans,” he hasn’t donated anything to any church or veterans’ groups — because he’s nothing but a pathological liar and fraud.
Give Trump credit: he’s made a lot of money by being an incompetent con artist. Like I said at the beginning of this post, he might very well be the most successful con artist in human history.
A failed businessman who somehow convinced tens of millions of people he was a “massive success” despite practically every one of his businesses failing, multiple bankruptcies, and several lawsuits in which he was sued for fraud.
And the truth of the matter is, for as successful a con artist as he’s been, he’s not really a good one. That’s what’s so incredible. It’s not as if Trump hides the fact that he’s completely full of crap. His rhetoric, propaganda, behavior, attacks, and conspiracies — it’s always the same thing. If he loses, it’s “rigged.”
If a reporter asks a tough question, they’re “fake news.”
If someone criticizes him, they’re “low IQ.”
If it’s anything negative, it’s never his fault.
If it’s positive, he wants all the credit.
He’s comically predictable — yet somehow, tens of millions of people simply don’t want to face that reality. He’s convinced them to believe the sky is red and that, despite all his business failures, he’s a “genius businessman.”
Donald Trump has proven one thing: if you lack ethics and morals, shed any sense of values, and have the ability to bullshit just well enough to dupe the most gullible within society, you can be very, very successful — even if that success is built on nothing but pure, never-ending nonsense.
Allen Clifton
