How The Presidency Made Mar-A-Lago Trump’s Most Valuable Property By Far [0:00-5:04]

How the presidency made Mar-a-Lago Trump's most valuable property by far. Donald Trump just couldn't resist the low stakes flex in a high-attention zip code. Last week, the president waited into last Tuesday's special election in Florida's State House District 87, with the truth social post in all caps, quote, John Maples has my complete and total endorsement. Maples, the Republican financial advisor, ended up losing Tuesday's race by two points to Democrat Emily Gregory, a small business owner, which means Gregory now represents two constituencies that really matter in modern Republican politics. The voters in our district, including Donald Trump himself, and the private club where the sitting president resides in often hosts power, money, and increasingly government. For the first time this March, when Forbes recalculated Trump's net worth for our world's billionaires list, we estimated Mar-a-Lago's value at over half a billion dollars. It now stands at $564 million. It's by a wide margin, the single most valuable property in its portfolio, and up over 50% from a year ago. Much of that can be chalked up to a sort of election-win premium that has made the club, perhaps, the most efficiently networked driveway in America. Forbes estimated Mar-a-Lago's value at about $340 million in September 2024 for the Forbes 400 list, the last valuation round before Trump returned to the White House. Not long after, Palm Beach real estate experts were already granting it higher valuations. In January 2025, Corcoran Group's Dana Koch said, quote, My head tells me at least $500 million. That was a $100 million jump from a previous estimate. He added, quote, I have people who would fight me tooth and nail to tell me it's worth $750 million, a billion, $1.25 billion, $1.5 billion. Seriously, they'd fight me on it real estate people. Aperture Global Founding Agent Isaac Klein made a similar case around the same time, explicitly framing the bump as stemming from public goodwill attached to a, quote, unique president. A better term for goodwill might be gravitational pull. Since Trump won the 2024 election, Forbes found at least 32 billionaires who reportedly made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. Of those 32, 25 are wealthier than they were a year ago. Collectively, they're worth a combined $2.3 trillion, up $700 billion. The list reads like a gilded-age guest book. Trump business partner Hussein Sajwani, who is a net worth of $15.3 billion, visited. The world's richest person, Elon Musk, worth $839 billion, did too. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth richest members of Forbes' 2026 billionaires list have also apparently been spotted. That's Sergei Brin, at $237 billion, Jeff Bezos, at $224 billion, Mark Zuckerberg, $222 billion, and Larry Ellison, $190 billion. In video CEO Jensen Huang, worth $154 billion, reportedly stopped by quietly to attend a $1 million ahead fundraiser in April. Shortly before the administration reversed course on restricting the company's chip sales in China. The person familiar with Huang's visit denied that he made a donation but confirmed he was at Mar-a-Lago. Other billionaire guests include members of Trump's administration, including billionaire commerce secretary Howard Lutnik, worth $7.2 billion, billionaire education secretary Linda McMahon, worth $3.6 billion, and billionaire ambassador to Italy, Tillman Fertitta, worth $11.7 billion. Mar-a-Lago's soaring valuation also has a boring but important underpinning, cash flow. In his most recent financial disclosures, Trump reported about $50 million in resort-related revenue in 2024, nearly double 2021's $27 million. Forbes estimates that the club, a go-to location for all sorts of MAGA events, made Trump some $33 million in profits in 2024, up from $14 million in 2021. Palm Beach's rising tide has helped too. A luxury market there has skyrocketed in recent years. In December, Compass agent Chris Dietz told Forbes, quote, everyone wants to be around Trump right now. Dietz noted the intensified demand for homes in the so-called security zone around the club. Trump's three nearby mansions are collectively worth about $100 million, up from $88 million a year ago, and $42 million in 2021.