A tiny bank in Trump Tower is making the president's sons even richer
The announcement in February that they were joining Dominari as advisers promptly sent shares soaring more than 80 per cent – a windfall for the brothers, at least on paper, because they received hundreds of thousands of shares beforehand. While the stock is down from its peak, Trump Jr and Eric have already amassed stakes they could potentially sell for about $US8 million each, according to a Bloomberg analysis.
Their involvement in Dominari follows a lucrative pattern the pair have embraced since their father’s re-election as president – joining a small, sometimes unprofitable company, announcing an advisory role, and watching the value of their shares pop.
Trump Jr took on a partnership with conservative Christian radio network Salem Media Group and became an adviser to Unusual Machines, a drone company that tapped Dominari for its initial public offering, among other ventures. In response to scrutiny of his corporate roles, Trump Jr has said that he has spent his entire adult life as a businessman.
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Yet even in their growing roster of corporate positions, Dominari stands out. One of the company’s most senior executives has a history of customer claims against him. The company underwrites US public offerings for small, obscure companies, many of which are based in Hong Kong and China and trade as penny stocks.
Of the more than a dozen initial public offerings (IPO) it has been involved in since shifting to banking, about one-third have plunged more than 75 per cent, a Bloomberg analysis shows. Some lost almost all of their value in less than a year of hitting public markets.
Brett Maas, a spokesman for Dominari, said none of the company’s advisers have sold any shares, and that the firm remained committed to “its long-term growth strategy”.
“Both the company and its investors believe in the strength of our business model, the calibre of our leadership and the opportunities ahead,” Maas said. The advisers’ “continued ownership reflects a shared belief in the company’s future and alignment with the interests of long-term shareholders”.
President Donald Trump and son Eric in the White House this month.Credit: Bloomberg
The Trump Organisation did not respond to a request for comment.
Regulators warn that penny stocks – typically defined as companies whose shares cost less than $US5 – can be associated with volatile trading and increased susceptibility to fraud. Dominari’s business shepherding low-priced companies to US markets could be a hazard, said Jay Ritter, an IPO researcher at the University of Florida.
“These penny stock underwriters are not going to be enhancing anybody’s reputation,” Ritter said.
Though Dominari has a track record of losing money on its private investments, the Trump brothers have said they see big things ahead for the company.
Dominari has its offices on the 22nd floor of Trump Tower.Credit: Getty Images
Since they joined, the firm already struck an agreement with Hut 8 Corp, a bitcoin mining company, that could stand to benefit from their father’s vow to make the US the “crypto capital of the world”.
“I’ve got a little special twinkle in my eye whenever I see those guys,” Eric Trump said of Dominari’s executives in an interview with Fintech.TV. “They’re an amazing firm. They’ve brought a lot of great things to us in the past, and so many of those great things have worked out so incredibly well.”
Though the Trumps haven’t been involved in Dominari for long – they became advisers only about three months ago – they’ve already amassed valuable stakes. They each received 750,000 shares for joining the company, and for meeting “certain milestones”.
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Three other Trump Organisation executives hold Dominari shares too. Ronald Lieberman, an executive vice president who joined Dominari as a board member in December, registered to sell most of his shares, worth more than $US1 million as of April. Lawrence Glick, another executive vice president, and chief legal officer Alan Garten registered to sell stakes worth more than $US3 million each. Lieberman, Glick and Garten did not respond to requests for comment.
On the February morning that Dominari announced Eric Trump and Trump Jr would join its advisory board – a board that the company rarely mentioned in previous filings – Dominari president Kyle Wool heralded the brothers’ business acumen.
Wool, who is also chief executive officer of the firm’s securities business, has helped shift the company’s focus radically since 2022, when it struck a deal to buy a brokerage and pivoted to finance from biotech.
He called President Donald Trump’s sons his friends, and said that with their help, Dominari would pursue even buzzier industries.
Dominari executive Kyle Wool has boosted his MAGA bona fides by styling himself as an expert on investing in regular appearances on Fox News.Credit: Fox Business
“They’re very great businessmen, and I think they both have an interest in the AI and data centre space,” Wool said in a phone interview after the announcement.
Wool, who added that he’s a member of a Trump golf course in Jupiter, Florida, has boosted his MAGA bona fides by styling himself as an expert on investing in regular appearances on Fox News, promoting “anything Elon Musk-related”, among other things.
Wool and wife Soo Yu, also a Dominari executive.Credit: Getty Images
Yet his track record is hardly pristine. Wool has faced five customer disputes since 2005, according to Finra, the financial industry’s self-regulatory body. The most recent of them alleges more than $US1 million of damages.
“Dominari and Mr Wool believe the allegations are wholly without merit, intend to vigorously contest them, and expect that they will prevail at a hearing on the merits,” the broker responded.
Asked about his earlier regulatory disclosures in February, Wool denied wrongdoing.
“This is part of being in the industry for many years,” Wool said at the time. “I vehemently denied that, and I defend myself.”
Wool declined a subsequent interview request. Dominari didn’t comment on detailed questions about Wool’s regulatory history.
Before arriving at Dominari, Wool worked at another small investment firm, Revere Securities. His conduct there was the subject of a 2023 legal complaint against him and several Revere colleagues.
The complaint offers a window into the accusations of aggressive sales tactics often associated with low-priced securities. A client who hired Wool to manage her investments claimed he made unauthorised trades, racking up more than $US820,000 in fees in less than a year for himself and Revere, according to the complaint. Her account, meanwhile, was saddled with about $US1.5 million of losses.
Wool urged the client, a professional female golfer, to invest $US250,000 in a bitcoin start-up called BCII, which had not yet gone public, the complaint said. The golfer allocated $US50,000, but Wool prodded her to invest more, “reminding us all of the movie Boiler Room,” the complaint said.
The golfer discovered her accounts held stocks she hadn’t known about: instead of shares in BCII, she owned a stake in a company called Kerna Health, according to the complaint.
Kerna Health was one of Dominari’s largest long-term holdings at the end of 2024.
“Mr Wool denies these allegations and will vigorously defend this matter,” states the broker comment on Finra’s site. On Wool’s listing on the BrokerCheck directory, the matter is now listed as “settled”.
Dominari’s leadership team is a tight-knit group. Wool, who first joined the company’s board in 2021, has described CEO Anthony Hayes as “one of my best friends”. Soo Yu, Wool’s wife, is special projects manager and sits on the board.
The company lost a net $US37.6 million in the two years to the end of 2024. In the first three months of 2025, it lost an additional $US32.5 million.
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Wool’s pay totalled $US2.8 million in 2024. Yu, a naturalised US citizen who was born in South Korea and cultivates relationships with clients overseas, collected $US2.4 million. In 2023, she earned more than $US8 million, putting her in league with executives at much larger financial institutions.
The corporation that became Dominari started as Spherix Incorporated in 1967. In 2017, it began operating a small-molecule anticancer and antiviral therapeutics firm, and later changed its name to Aikido Pharma Inc. It rebranded once more to Dominari in 2022.
In the same year, it agreed to buy a small broker-dealer called FieldPoint. Its Trump Tower lease agreements cost it about $US750,000 a year in rent, filings show.
Its track record in IPOs has largely come from penny stocks. Jupiter, Florida-based Jupiter Neurosciences Inc and Hong Kong-based Wellchange Holdings Co are among the companies with shares trading below $US1 after sharp price drops on the public markets.
Dominari shares soared when the Trump brothers joined the firm in February.Credit: Bloomberg
Dominari also made small investments in private businesses that link back to President Donald Trump’s orbit. They include a $US100,000 stake in Elon Musk’s xAI; $US364,000 in crypto exchange Kraken, whose co-founder Jesse Powell donated $US1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. It held a roughly $US1 million stake in Unusual Machines, where Trump Jr is also an adviser, before the drone company went public in 2024, according to the most recent disclosures.
Dominari is moving deeper into cryptocurrency, an industry the Trumps promote. The company started a Bitcoin stockpiling strategy in the same month that the Trumps joined. It held about $US2 million of a Bitcoin exchange-traded fund at the end of March.
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In another crypto venture, Dominari created a data-centre division in February with the Trumps, and announced it was turning it into a bitcoin miner in March. A publicly traded company, Hut 8, agreed to hand over almost all of its miners to Dominari’s newly formed data-centre division. Hut 8 would get 80 per cent, and the Trumps and their partners would receive the remaining 20 per cent.
The new company, American Bitcoin, plans to go public this year by combining with another firm, in another potential opportunity for its owners to profit.
Asked about the expertise the Trumps would bring to Dominari, Wool responded that they’re “friends and advisers” and he didn’t want to speak for them.
Adam Pritchard, who teaches corporate and securities law at the University of Michigan, said one driver for the small bank’s selection of the advisers is likely name recognition.
“Is there any doubt that having the last name Trump is helping in their business?” he said. “Of course it’s helping them.”
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