Donald John Trump Sr. (born June 14, 1946) is an American businessman, investor, television personality and author. He is the chairman and president of The Trump Organization and the founder of Trump Entertainment Resorts. Trump's extravagant lifestyle, outspoken manner, and role on the NBC reality show The Apprentice have made him a well-known celebrity who was No. 17 on the 2011 Forbes Celebrity 100 list.
Trump is the son of Fred Trump, a wealthy New York City real-estate developer. He worked for his father's firm, Elizabeth Trump & Son, while attending the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and in 1968 officially joined the company. He was given control of the company in 1971 and renamed it The Trump Organization.
In 2010, Trump expressed an interest in becoming a candidate for President of the United States in the 2012 election, though in May 2011, he announced he would not run. Trump was a featured speaker at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). In 2013, Trump spent over $1 million to research a possible run for president of the United States in 2016.
Trump was born in Queens, New York to Fred Trump and Mary Anne (MacLeod), who married in 1936. His mother was born on the Isle of Lewis, off the west coast of Scotland. Donald was one of five children. Donald's oldest brother, Fred Jr., died in 1981 at the age of 43. Trump's paternal grandparents were German immigrants. His grandfather, Frederick Trump (né Friedrich Drumpf), emigrated to the United States in 1885 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1892. Frederick married Elisabeth Christ (October 10, 1880 – June 6, 1966) at Kallstadt, Kingdom of Bavaria, Germany, on August 26, 1902. They had three children.
Trump attended the Kew-Forest School in Forest Hills, Queens, as did some of his siblings. At age 13 after he had some difficulties there, his parents sent him to the New York Military Academy (NYMA), hoping to direct his energy and assertiveness in a positive manner. At NYMA, in rural New York, Trump earned academic honors, and played varsity football in 1962, varsity soccer in 1963, and varsity baseball from 1962 to 1964 (baseball captain 1964).
Trump attended Fordham University for two years before transferring to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania because Wharton had then one of the few real estate departments in American academia. He graduated in 1968 with a Bachelor of Science degree in economics.
Trump's mother, Mary Anne, was born in 1912 at Tong, Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis, off the coast of Scotland, United Kingdom. In 1930, aged 18, on a holiday in New York, she met Fred Trump and stayed in New York. Born in Queens, New York, Trump has four siblings: two brothers, Fred, Jr. (who is deceased) and Robert S. Trump; and two sisters, Maryanne and Elizabeth. His older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, is a federal appeals court judge.
In 1977, Trump married Ivana Zelníčková and together they have three children: Donald, Jr. (born December 31, 1977), Ivanka (born October 30, 1981), and Eric (born January 6, 1984). They were divorced in 1992. In 1993, he married Marla Maples and together they had one child, Tiffany (born October 13, 1993). They divorced on June 8, 1999. In a February 2008 interview on ABC's news program Nightline, Trump commented on his ex-wives by saying, "I just know it's very hard for them (Ivana and Marla) to compete because I do love what I do. I really love it."
On April 26, 2004, he proposed to Melania Knauss, a native of Slovenia. Trump and Knauss married on January 22, 2005, at Bethesda by the Sea Episcopal Church, on the island of Palm Beach, Florida, followed by a reception at Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate. Melania gave birth to a boy named Barron William Trump, Trump's fifth child, on March 20, 2006.
Trump has seven grandchildren: five from his son Donald Jr. (Kai Madison, Donald John III, Tristan Milos, Spencer Frederick and Chloe Sophia) and two from his daughter Ivanka (Arabella Rose and Joseph Frederick.
Trump has stated in interviews that he is a Presbyterian. In April 2011 on Human Events, he said that he is "a Presbyterian within the Protestant group". In an April 2011 interview, on the 700 Club, Trump said, "I'm a Protestant, I'm a Presbyterian. And you know I've had a good relationship with the church over the years. I think religion is a wonderful thing. I think my religion is a wonderful religion." A 2010 article in The Daily Telegraph stated that Trump was Catholic. A February 2011 Politics Daily article described Trump as "apparently a member of the Dutch Reformed Church, which is a Presbyterian denomination". Andrew Cusack in 2008 stated that Donald Trump is a member of New York City's Marble Collegiate Church. Explaining that church's organizational relationships, Cusack says "the Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church is actually a denomination within a denomination" and that the Collegiate Churches are "now part of the Reformed Church of America". Marble Collegiate Church also states that it is denominationally affiliated with the Reformed Church in America, with the RCA website stating that the RCA has a local church "presbyterian form of government". Trump does not drink alcohol.
In September 2010, Trump expressed on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN, his "suspicions of ulterior motives at the imam running the project" known as Park51, claiming the imam was "using religion" (meaning Islam) to get a good price for the real estate.[180] He also appeared on Fox's Hannity, and said much the same.[181] Trump was quoted by the New York Post that, while he "is a 'big believer in freedom of religion,' ... his personal opinion was that the mosque should not be built close to Ground Zero ...". After Trump offered in a letter to buy the two-building site for more than $6 million in order to end the general controversy, the lawyers for the majority stakeholder, according to the Post, criticized "Trump's letter offering to buy the site as a publicity stunt".
Trump began his career at his father's company, Elizabeth Trump and Son, which focused on middle-class rental housing in Brooklyn, Queens, and Staten Island. One of Trump's first projects, while he was still in college, was the revitalization of the foreclosed Swifton Village apartment complex in Cincinnati, Ohio, which his father had purchased for $5.7 million in 1962. Trump became intimately involved in the project and with a $500,000 investment, turned the 1200-unit complex with a 66 percent vacancy rate to 100 percent occupancy within two years. In 1972 the Trump Organization sold Swifton Village for $6.75 million.
In 1971, Trump moved to Manhattan and became involved in larger building projects and utilized attractive architectural design to win public recognition. He made plans to acquire and develop the old Penn Central for $60 million with no money down. Later, with the help of a 40 year tax abatement from the New York City government, he turned the bankrupt Commodore Hotel into the Grand Hyatt and created The Trump Organization.
Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
The New York City government had a plan to build the Javits Convention Center on property Trump held a right to buy option. Trump estimated his company could have completed the project for $110 million but the city rejected his offer and Trump received a broker's fee on the sale of the property instead. The Wollman Rink in Central Park, was started in 1980 with an expected 2½-year construction schedule but was nowhere near completion by 1986. Trump took over the management of the project, at no cost to the city, and completed it in three months for $1.95 million, which was $750,000 less than the remaining budget.
In 1988, Trump acquired the Taj Mahal Casino in a transaction with Merv Griffin and Resorts International.
This expansion, both personal and business, led to mounting debt. Much of the news about him in the early 1990s involved his much publicized financial problems, creditor-led bailout, extramarital affair with Marla Maples (whom he later married), and the resulting divorce from his first wife, Ivana Trump.
By 1989, poor business decisions left Trump unable to meet loan payments. Trump financed the construction of his third casino, the $1 billion Taj Mahal, primarily with high-interest junk bonds. Although he shored up his businesses with additional loans and postponed interest payments, by 1991 increasing debt brought Trump to business bankruptcy and to the brink of personal bankruptcy. Banks and bond holders had lost hundreds of millions of dollars, but opted to restructure his debt to avoid the risk of losing more money in court. The Taj Mahal re-emerged from bankruptcy on October 5, 1991, with Trump ceding 50 percent ownership in the casino to the original bondholders in exchange for lowered interest rates on the debt and more time to pay it off.
The late 1990s saw a resurgence in his financial situation and fame. In 2001, he completed Trump World Tower, a 72-story residential tower across from the United Nations Headquarters. Also, he began construction on Trump Place, a multi-building development along the Hudson River. Trump owns commercial space in Trump International Hotel and Tower, a 44-story mixed-use (hotel and condominium) tower on Columbus Circle. Trump currently owns several million square feet of prime Manhattan real estate, and remains a major figure in the field of real estate in the United States and a celebrity for his prominent media exposures.
Trump has several projects under way, with varying levels of success in their progress. The Trump International Hotel and Tower – Honolulu seems to be a success. According to Trump, buyers paid non-refundable deposits, committing to purchase every unit on the first day they were made available. Construction of the Trump International Hotel and Tower – Chicago seems to be proceeding as planned, although 30 percent of the units remain unsold. The Trump International Hotel and Tower – Toronto has had a series of delays and a height reduction. The Trump Tower – Tampa has been quite controversial because the initial sales were so successful that all deposits were returned in order to charge a higher price. Three years after construction of this controversial development began, construction has delayed and lawsuits have been filed. In Fort Lauderdale, Florida, one Trump construction project was put on hold in favor of another (Trump International Hotel and Tower – Fort Lauderdale). Meanwhile, Trump Towers – Atlanta is being developed in a housing market having the nation's second-highest inventory of unsold homes.
In its October 7, 2007 Forbes 400 issue, "Acreage Aces", Forbes valued Trump's wealth at $3.0 billion. Since 2011, his net worth has been estimated from $2.9 billion to $7 billion.
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