Trump's August disclosure lists 517 trades, including up to $25 million in Meta and SpaceX notes bought two days before space policy signing

President Trump's accounts reported 517 securities purchases and sales in August, according to a financial disclosure filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. The filing was received Sept. 25.

The transactions carried a combined reported value of roughly $74.3 million to $273.3 million, a CNBC analysis found. Purchases came to at least $44.2 million and sales to at least $30.1 million. Federal rules require only value ranges, so exact dollar amounts cannot be determined.

The Meta buy and the Aug. 21 reshuffle

The largest single item was an Aug. 21 purchase of Meta shares worth between $5 million and $25 million.

The same day, the accounts bought $1 million to $5 million each of AT&T, ConocoPhillips, Abbott Laboratories, Netflix and Chevron.

On the sell side that day, the accounts dumped $1 million to $5 million each of Advanced Micro Devices and Church & Dwight. They also sold positions worth $500,001 to $1 million in Boeing, Home Depot, T-Mobile, Datadog, Dell Technologies, Palo Alto Networks and Nvidia.

Meta did not immediately respond to CNBC's request for comment.

SpaceX notes and the space policy

The filing also shows a new SpaceX position. On Aug. 18, Trump's accounts bought $1 million to $5 million in senior unsecured notes issued by Elon Musk's company. The notes carry a 5.35% interest rate and mature in July 2031.

Two days later, on Aug. 20, Trump signed a national space transportation policy. It calls for support of more than 1,000 launches and reentries a year by 2030. It directs federal agencies to open federal launch facilities to commercial users and to encourage private investment and public-private partnerships in space infrastructure.

SpaceX is a major Pentagon contractor and a NASA launch provider. That puts it in a strong position to benefit from a larger commercial launch market.

The accounts had held SpaceX equity before, but on a far smaller scale. The June and July filings each show share purchases of $15,001 to $50,000, and July shows a sale of $1,001 to $15,000. June was the month of SpaceX's IPO. SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nothing in the filing says the trade and the policy are connected. The sequence is a matter of dates, and no charges or investigation have been announced.

The White House position

White House spokesman Davis Ingle said Trump does not direct the trades. He said the portfolio is independently managed through discretionary accounts and computer-based models, and that Trump and his family have "no ability" to influence investment decisions.

The White House has previously said the accounts are run by independent advisors using automated model portfolios benchmarked to indexes such as the Schwab 1000. On that account, a mid-month reshuffle across a dozen large companies is what a rules-based portfolio does, not a presidential bet.

Democratic lawmakers have pressed for details on who manages the portfolio.

A pattern of heavy activity

August was quieter than the two months before it. The June and July disclosures each listed more than 1,000 transactions. July's covered 1,156 transactions worth roughly $79 million to $270 million, including Microsoft and Amazon sales of up to $25 million apiece.

That volume is unusual for a sitting president. Recent presidents have generally sold individual stocks or used blind trusts or diversified funds to avoid potential conflicts, CNBC noted.

The Meta stake is a widely held mega-cap, and even the top of the reported range is small against its market value. The SpaceX debt is a different kind of exposure, because the issuer is directly affected by the policy Trump signed two days later.

The White House has said Trump has no ability to influence the trades. Lawmakers' request to learn who runs the accounts remains the open item, and the filing itself cannot answer it. Whether any oversight body or Democratic lawmaker pursues the August SpaceX purchase beyond that request is the next thing to watch.