THE NEW YORK TIMES: "Mr. Trump has a small personal financial interest in Sanofi, the French drugmaker that makes the brand-name version of hydroxychloroquine....[his] assertiveness in pressing the case [for it]...has raised questions about his motives." nytimes.com/2020/04/06/us/…
UPDATE (via MARKETWATCH): "It turns out [Trump] does look to have more than [a] modest sum [$99 to $1,485] invested in Sanofi, because, unmentioned in the NYT report, his trusts also hold broader European stock-market index funds."
Upshot is, we don't know the size of the stake.
Upshot is, we don't know the size of the stake.
PS/ What we *do* know is that one of the most famous true stories ever told about Trump—the "Spy Magazine" story—has as its moral the following fact: Trump considers *13 cents* incredibly valuable. So the idea his Sanofi stake is invisible to him is inconsistent with his history.
PS2/ I understand folks like @gtconway3d analyzing Trump's portfolio from the standpoint of a non-sociopath—we all do well not to assume strange predilections on others' part, like caring about a comparatively tiny financial stake. But what if we *know* the person is a sociopath?
PS3/ But let me make a separate point: I've written as many bestsellers on Trump's presidency as anyone—and cited more sources in doing so, by a factor of hundreds, than anybody—and I'll tell you one thing I've determined as a researcher: with Trump, it's ALWAYS about corruption.
PS4/ So we can struggle to figure out what Trump's "angle" is in a given situation, but the fact remains that he has—I first said this three years ago—criminal *instincts*. His *instinct* is to approach any scenario in a corrupt and often criminal way. We'd expect the same here.
PS5/ So when @gtconway3d says, "There are plenty of other things to get him on," he's misunderstanding the man. Those of us who write about/research him nearly fulltime understand that the criminal "angle" he's taken is often *far bigger* than it first appears. So you *must* dig.
