Fred Trump Net Worth, Inheritance Disputes, and Family Legacies

What Was Fred Trump Net Worth?

Fred Trump, an American real estate developer, had a net worth of $200–300 million when he died in 1999.

Today, that would be around $300–$450 million after adjusting for inflation. In 1982, his net worth was $200 million, equivalent to about $500 million today. Fred was Donald Trump’s father.

In 1927, Fred co-founded the real estate company E. Trump & Son with his mother, Elizabeth Christ Trump. The company later became the Fred Trump Organization and is now called The Trump Organization.

Fred faced investigations for profiteering by a U.S. Senate committee and the State of New York.

In 1973, after Trump became president of The Trump Organization, the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division sued the company for violating the Fair Housing Act.

In 1991, doctors diagnosed Fred with “mild senile dementia.” Two years later, he began suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. He died of pneumonia in June 1999.

Biography

Fred Trump was born Frederick Christ Trump on October 11, 1905, in New York City. His parents, Frederick (born Friedrich) Trump and Elizabeth Christ Trump, were German-American.

Fred had two siblings, Elizabeth and John. His father, a businessman, ran a restaurant for miners during the Klondike Gold Rush and later bought real estate.

Fred and his siblings grew up speaking German. At age 10, he started working as a delivery boy for a butcher.

While attending Richmond Hill High School, Fred worked various jobs like caddying and selling newspapers.

In 1918, Frederick died of the Spanish flu, and Elizabeth took over the family’s real estate business.

Fred was keen on becoming a builder. He built a garage for a neighbor and took correspondence courses in masonry, plumbing, and electrical wiring.

After graduating in early 1923, Fred worked pulling lumber to construction sites and later became a carpenter’s assistant.

In 1924, with an $800 loan from his mother, Fred built and sold his first house. Within two years, he had built 20 houses, financing some by selling them before completion.

His mother held his business, E. Trump & Son, in her name because Fred was not yet of legal age.

Wealth Transfer

A 2018 “New York Times” exposé reported that Fred and his wife, Mary, gave their children over $1 billion (in 2018’s currency) and evaded more than $500 million in gift taxes.

Fred illegally gave Donald millions of dollars between 1987 and 1991. In 1997, he transferred most of his apartment buildings to his children. These buildings were worth $41.4 million at the time and were later sold for $737.9 million.

Career

Fred Trump incorporated E. Trump & Son in 1927. In 1933, he built Trump Market, one of NYC’s first modern grocery stores, and sold it six months later to King Kullen.

In 1934, Fred and a partner acquired J. Lehrenkrauss & Sons’ mortgage-servicing subsidiary, buying properties nearing foreclosure at low prices and selling them for profit.

He leveraged Federal Housing Administration loan subsidies to build homes, employing 400 workers by 1936.

Fred advertised his business on the yacht Trump Show Boat in the late ’30s, offering discounts with swordfish-shaped balloons.

In 1938, the “Brooklyn Daily Eagle” dubbed him the “Henry Ford of the home building industry.”

During WWII, he built garden apartments and barracks for U.S. Navy members and later homes for returning veterans.

In the late ’40s, Fred built Shore Haven in Brooklyn, featuring over 30 buildings and a shopping center. In 1950, he built Beach Haven Apartments near Coney Island.

By 1964, he had completed Trump Village, a $70 million apartment complex. Fred constructed over 27,000 row houses and low-income apartments in New York.

In 1954, the “New York Times” listed Fred among 35 city builders accused of profiteering.

The U.S. Senate and New York State investigated him for windfall gains, but he was not indicted. In the early ’70s, Donald Trump became president of the company, and Fred became chairman.

The Urban League and NYC Commission on Human Rights found discriminatory practices in Trump apartments, leading to a 1975 consent decree with the Department of Justice to prohibit discrimination.

Personal Life

In 1927, police arrested Fred Trump and several other men at a Ku Klux Klan rally, referring to them as “berobed marchers” in a Long Island newspaper.

He was arrested for “refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered,” but the charge was later dismissed. In the mid-1930s, Fred met Scottish immigrant Mary Anne MacLeod at a dance party.

They married on January 11, 1936, at NYC’s Madison Avenue Presbyterian Church and honeymooned in Atlantic City for one night.

They had five children: Maryanne (born 1937), Fred Jr. (born 1938), Elizabeth (born 1942), Donald (born 1946), and Robert (born 1948). Fred Jr. died in 1981, and Robert passed away in 2020.

Fred was a strict father who forbade his children from wearing lipstick, snacking, and cursing. His sons had paper routes, and he let them use a limo in bad weather.

After Elizabeth’s birth, the family moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, but returned to Queens in 1944.

Within two years, they lived in a five-bedroom home Fred built in Jamaica Estates. He also built a 23-room mansion on the neighboring lot.

Fred and Mary donated buildings to the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, United Cerebral Palsy, and the National Kidney Foundation.

Fred was a trustee of the Jamaica Hospital Medical Center and supported the Hospital for Special Surgery and the Long Island Jewish Hospital.

He also supported the Salvation Army and the Lighthouse for the Blind. Fred served on the board of directors at the Kew-Forest School, which his children attended, and donated land for Flatbush’s Beach Haven Jewish Center.

What happened to Fred Trump?