Democratic Report Puts Trump's Oil and Gas Holdings at $22.5 Million to $81.6 Million; NYT Tallies $130 Billion in Industry Profit

Since U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in late February, the war has stretched past seven months, and two new accountings this week put numbers on who is paying and who is collecting.

The industry's take

More than 50 large U.S. oil and gas companies earned over $130 billion in profit from April through September, according to a New York Times analysis. The Times called that a conservative tally because it leaves out March and October. The same companies earned less than $47 billion in the same period of 2025.

Refiners did especially well. The Times analysis says hostilities damaged fuel-making plants in the Middle East and Russia, leaving fewer refineries online and pushing margins higher.

On the other side of the pump, the Times puts the extra cost to Americans for gasoline and diesel since Feb. 28 at $147 billion, more than $1,100 per household.

Three different bills

The estimates do not match, because the methods differ.

Brown University's Iran War Energy Cost Tracker counted $73 billion in extra gasoline costs and $60 billion in extra diesel costs as of Oct. 12. That totals more than $130 billion, or over $1,000 per household. The tracker compares actual AAA prices with a counterfactual price for each day. It covers only gasoline and diesel, and it deliberately ignores producer gains.

The Joint Economic Committee's Democratic minority puts the added gas spending at $101 billion, an average of $856 per family. The range runs from roughly $856 to $1,100 per household depending on who is counting and what they include.

AAA's national average was $4.29 a gallon on Monday, Oct. 26, up from $2.98 two days before the conflict began.

The president's portfolio

A report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, obtained exclusively by CBS News, says Trump's oil and gas holdings are worth between $22.5 million and $81.6 million. At the end of 2025 they were worth $12.6 million to $46 million.

The Democratic minority, using LSEG Data Analytics figures, says the stocks Trump holds have gained an average of 43% since the end of 2025. Exxon and Chevron make up most of the holdings, and both stocks are up more than 20% since February.

The report also says Trump bought between $4.7 million and $17.5 million in oil and gas stocks from March through the end of August, the latest period with data. It says more than 94% of this year's purchases came after the strikes on Iran. He also sold between $2 million and $5.4 million in the same window.

The figures come from Trump's Office of Government Ethics filings, which require only transaction ranges, not exact amounts. That is why every number above is a band. The report is the work of the minority party, eight days before an election.

What the White House says

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump's stock and bond portfolio is "independently managed by third-party financial institutions." He said the holdings sit in discretionary accounts and are invested through computer-based model portfolios that "automatically replicate recognized indexes."

The White House says Trump does not make trading decisions himself. Ingle added that "President Trump's priority has been and continues to be lowering gas prices for American families."

Nothing in the report as described shows Trump personally directing a trade. The dispute is over what to make of a president whose managed accounts grew while he publicly praised the industry's windfall.

The rally remarks

At a rally in Perry, Georgia, on Saturday, Oct. 24, Trump said U.S. oil and gas companies are "making hundreds of billions of dollars." He also said: "We're making a freakin' fortune." He added that his advisers had told him not to mention it.

He said prices are "temporarily high and will be falling dramatically in a short period of time, as soon as that war's over, because there's so much oil." He has repeatedly called higher oil prices a "small price to pay" for neutralizing Iran's nuclear threat.

Sen. Bernie Sanders responded on X: "Trump just said the quiet part out loud. He doesn't 'give a damn' about higher gas prices, as long as his billionaire friends are making a fortune." That is Sanders' characterization. Trump did not say those words about gas prices in the remarks quoted.

One point cuts against the rally boast. The profit figures are for companies, not the country. Brown's tracker states that producer gains are "mostly irrelevant" to households worried about fuel bills. Whether that money reaches ordinary Americans is a separate question, and Trump did not address it.

What comes next

The midterms are Tuesday, Nov. 3. Trump's promise is that pump prices fall once the war ends, but no end date exists, and the Strait of Hormuz was still described as closed at the Georgia rally. The filings that would show any October trades will not be public until later reporting periods.