As some MAGAs pointed out to me, what do I expect him to do here, billionaires don't just have that kind of cash at their disposal. I was even informed that Elon Musk, who's worth like 200 billion couldn't just make half a billion appear. So Trump has the money, he just doesn't have the money.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think Elon would struggle to come up with the cash if he needed it. Same with Jeff Besos, and even Mark Cuban, who I was told was "only worth 5 billion" compared to Trump who's worth twice that. While I will agree nobody just has 500 million in their sock drawer. If Trump was worth anywhere close to what he brags about, he could make it happen within a short period of time, maybe a a few days. I'm broke so I honestly don't have a clue how long it would take even a mega rich person like Besos to come up with that kind of hard cash lol. It is definitely doable in a 30 day period.
The MAGAs all seem to think he could easily pay this, yet none can explain to me how if that was true why no insurance companies want to post the bond for him. They get like 2.5% right? Which would be over $10 million.
All this recent shit makes me wonder what amount he could actually afford to post a bond for.
Elon is somewhat of a special case. Much of his
paper net worth is in Tesla stock, which until recently was a hype stock. It still is, but the story no longer makes sense. If he had to raise $500M by selling stock, he could easily do so but it would trigger a sell off that would tank the shares. He'd also have to pay capital gains tax, which he and his buddy Donald are loathsome to ever do. Elon's other major asset is in SpaceX, perhaps also a hype stock but it has a great story IMO. However it's privately held so I don't think he can do much there.
I don't think other insanely rich guys like Bezos or Zuck would have any problem whatsoever coming up with $500M in cash within 30 days. I have no idea what Cuban's liquidity looks like, but he's now in the process of selling most of the Mavs franchise.
Anyway, Forbes says Donny is worth a bit over $2B but his major properties are highly leveraged. It doesn't
seem truthful that the Trump Org actually has $400Mish of cash lying around just for operations, because he's constantly refinancing his massive debt. Even his namesake Trump Tower has a $100M mortgage on it. Currently it's a pretty poor environment for commercial real estate, so he certainly doesn't want to sell anything now if that's even feasible on short notice. Assuming the $455M penalty is ultimately upheld AND paid, he'd still want to string it out until commercial RE rebounds. If enforced, this penalty and the estate tax his heirs would one day pay would essentially mean the RE empire his dad illegally gifted to him decades ago would have to be dismantled.