Scott Galloway Accuses Trump’s Meme Coin “the greatest grift in history,” Enriching His Family Nearly $3 Billion

Scott Galloway has strongly criticized President Donald Trump for the launch and use of the Trump meme coin, calling it an unprecedented financial grift and a form of corruption.

On the latest My First Million Podcast, Galloway argues that the Trump coin was used to enrich Trump and his family by nearly $3 billion in just the first few months of his second term, describing it as “the greatest grift in the history of our economy” due to the speed and scale of money made from it.

Podcast transcript below:

Scott Galloway:
Hands down, my biggest personal investment thesis is that income inequality is only going to get worse. I’ve been saying this for a long time. I think it’s terrible—but I also think it’s inevitable.

The money has completely washed over Washington. We now have a president who’s launched a meme coin. Essentially, it’s a Swiss bank account where anyone can anonymously deposit money.

Co-host:
Oh, and congrats on that $500K Trump Friends Club membership you bought—or whatever it’s called.

Galloway:
(Laughs) Yeah, the ambassadors—the douchiest of douches in Doucheville. For $500K, I’d pay a lot of money not to be in that club.

Honestly, the thing is, he’d probably sell you that too. He’s a genius. People have been really critical, but my sense is: it’s a free assembly. They can do whatever they want.

What I do think is criminal is this meme coin. Imagine Putin calls Trump and says, “I’ll put a billion dollars into this. I’ve got mathematicians. I’ll pulse the price, move discovery at the margins, and we’ll run this thing up to a $30 billion market cap. You own 80%—you’re the richest man in the world.”

Then, totally unrelated, he says, “Oh, and could you stop supporting Ukraine?” Wouldn’t Putin be stupid not to make that call?

Co-host:
He’s losing half a billion a day. And wait—what’s it called? Trumpcoin?

Galloway:
Yeah. Trumpcoin. A meme coin. Completely insane.

Co-host:
What’s the market cap now?

Galloway:
It hit $5 billion, then $20 billion, and now it’s hovering around $3 or $4 billion.

You want to talk about grift? They launched Trumpcoin the Friday night before the inauguration—the darkest possible news hole. It got buried.

Thirty people made $800 million over the weekend. I’d bet they got a heads-up from someone close to Trump.

Over the next couple of months, 80,000 retail investors lost billions. Then, as the lock-up period ended, he announces a fancy dinner to hype the stock. And soon after, the Department of Justice’s crypto fraud unit? Shut down.

If any Republican ever mentions the name Hunter Biden, it’s laughable. What Hunter’s accused of is a parking ticket compared to the industrial-scale grift we’re seeing now.

Co-host:
But both can be wrong. That’s what bothers me—when people say, “What about this?” No. That’s also bad.

Galloway:
Exactly. Democrats have been corrupt too—but it’s small ball. Pelosi trades stocks after closed-door meetings. She hears that HHS is investing in AI payment systems, then buys call options on Tempest AI. After she discloses it, the stock pops 30–40%.

That’s corruption. But it’s in the hundreds of thousands. Trump’s corruption is in the billions. And worse, it erodes Americans’ confidence in the markets.

He could call a foreign leader and say, “I’m thinking about invading Taiwan. Can you keep your carrier fleets out of the Strait?” And meanwhile, they’re buying a ton of Trumpcoin, and nobody knows.

That’s grift on a whole different level.