Within moments of Donald Trump’s bombshell social media post backing off from his tariffs, allegations of wrongdoing were flying.
The stock market soared and the president’s opponents alleged an insider trading conspiracy as the billions of dollars in gains piled up for those who saw it coming.
Now, a former White House ethics expert has called on Trump’s inner circle to be barred from buying and selling shares while the trade war rages on.
“Until this whole tariff thing is sorted out, anyone who is an appointee of the president should not be buying and selling stocks,” says Richard Painter, formerly George W Bush’s chief ethics lawyer.
“Elon Musk, anyone who is an appointee of the president, should abstain from trading.”
In a pointed critique of Trump’s tendency to rule by social media, Painter said he would have “had a fit” if he were working for a president who talked so publicly about buying and selling stocks.
It comes after Trump wrote “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY” on his Truth Social website just hours before his tariff climbdown led to the S&P 500 posting its biggest jump since 2008 .
“I made it clear in the Bush White House that this kind of thing couldn’t happen,” says Painter. “We’re not investment advisers.”
He has called on Trump to issue an executive order to block any of his aides from trading, while also stressing that there should be “no more talking about the market”.
Although there is no evidence that anyone close to Trump has acted on inside information, anger is building.
Nasdaq call volumes spiked in the hour before Trump unveiled his turnaround , as traders bought the right to purchase shares at a certain price.
Unusual Whales, a research firm that tracks market data, said that some of the trades were what is known as “zero DTEs”, meaning zero days to expiration.
An analyst at the firm said: “These options, as the name implies, expire the same day as purchase, making them much riskier than farther-dated options. The sharp increase in equities [last night] created exponential gains for those correctly positioned.”
And for every dollar gained, someone else lost out.
“Did anyone buy or sell stocks, and profit at the public’s expense?” said Adam Schiff, a Democrat senator in California, on social media, as he called for an urgent investigation into potential insider trading.
Following Wednesday’s swing in the markets, traders around the world said they had never seen anything like it.
Peter Hargreaves, the billionaire co-founder of Hargreaves Lansdown, said the recent turmoil caused by Trump’s tariffs was “in a different league” to what he had experienced before.
It was only a week ago that the world’s 500 wealthiest people saw their combined riches plunge $208bn (£160bn) in just 24 hours after Trump’s ‘liberation day’ tariffs blitz.
However, that same group gained a combined $304bn after the president announced a 90-day tariff pause on Wednesday.
It marked the largest one-day gain in the history of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with the biggest prizewinner being Elon Musk, who added $36bn to his fortune.
These are numbers the president is proud of.
Gesturing towards two businessmen in a video posted online in the aftermath of Wednesday night’s stock market rally, Trump said: “He made $2.5bn today, and he made $900m. That’s not bad.”
Unsurprisingly, outraged Democrats have been quick to raise concerns.
“Any member of Congress who purchased stocks in the last 48 hours should probably disclose that now,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the Left-wing House representative, wrote on X, adding: “It’s time to ban insider trading.”
Schiff has also penned a letter to the White House to “demand who knew in advance that the president was gonna once again flip flop on tariffs? And are people cashing in?”
The question now is to what extent will those inside Trumpworld face scrutiny?
Joe Gallina, a former lawyer who set up the Call to Activism campaign group to monitor the Trump administration, issued a warning to the president’s loyal fan club.
“While a sitting president is largely shielded from insider trading laws, those around him are not,” he says. “If anyone in Trump’s circle used privileged information to profit from this swing, that could potentially violate securities laws.
“This isn’t just about one suspicious trade – it’s about a pattern where political power appears to intersect with financial opportunity.
“When policy decisions from someone like Trump can move markets by billions, and those decisions are reversed with no clear rationale, it opens the door to exploitation.
“The Securities and Exchange Commission and Department of Justice should be examining not just the trades themselves, but who knew what and when.
“The American people deserve confidence that our markets aren’t being manipulated by those in the room where the decisions are made.”
The White House has denied any suggestion of insider trading.
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