President Donald Trump bought a load of Dell Technologies stock just months before the computer maker received a massive Pentagon contract, in yet another example of how the president can benefit financially from his work in the White House.The Defense Department announced Wednesday that Dell had won a $9.7 billion, five-year contract to provide software to the military. Back on Feb. 10, Trump purchased somewhere between $1 million and $5 million worth of Dell stock, according to his periodic financial transaction report. The public did not become aware of that stock purchase until the disclosures were filed earlier this month, as required by law. But in the meantime, the president repeatedly hyped Dell in a series of public speeches, even going so far as to urge people to “go out and buy a Dell computer.”“They make a great product,” the president said less than two weeks after the stock buy.Before scoring the Pentagon deal, the Dell family had effectively promoted the president by donating $6.25 billion in funding for so-called “Trump accounts,” the new tax-advantaged savings vehicles created by the president’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.“I want to thank the Dell family. It’s a great family. He is amazing; she is amazing,” the president said on May 8, referring to Susan and Michael Dell, the company’s billionaire founder.All the while, Dell stock has soared. “The potential conflicts of interest are so numerous with Trump that they can be difficult to keep up with.”The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday on how the Pentagon contract and the president’s public remarks could juice his portfolio. The Trump family has previously said that the trades are placed automatically and that the president doesn’t control them.“President Trump’s investment holdings are maintained exclusively in fully discretionary accounts managed by independent third-party financial institutions,” his son Eric Trump said on X last week. “These institutions have sole and exclusive authority over all investment decisions, including asset allocation, trading, rebalancing, and portfolio management.”The younger Trump called the media’s reporting on conflicts of interest “dishonest.”“The president doesn’t sit at the Oval Office on his computer on a Robinhood account buying and selling stocks,” Vice President JD Vance said dismissively at a press conference on May 19.WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 27: U.S. President Donald Trump looks on during a Cabinet meeting in the Cabinet Room of the White House on May 27, 2026 in Washington, DC. Trump meets with his Cabinet days after saying a peace deal with Iran was “largely negotiated” amid expectations around the re-opening the Strait of Hormuz. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)Win McNamee via Getty ImagesEven if the trades are made by third parties, the president can still be aware of them because his investments are not in a blind trust, as The New York Times noted. The potential conflicts of interest involving Trump are so numerous that they can be difficult to keep up with. He bucked norms by refusing to divest from his own companies during both his presidencies, and has blurred the lines between official business and personal profit throughout his time in the White House, including pouring money into cryptocurrency while trying to deregulate the industry. Just this month, administration officials announced a new $1.78 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” that could enable them to steer taxpayer money to Trump allies, Capitol rioters among them. Ethics experts have called it an act of brazen corruption. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a government accountability watchdog group, said the president’s Dell stock purchase and the events that followed demonstrate “why ethics laws matter.”“The president has put the weight of his office behind a private company, singling them out as a good investment and granting them a lucrative government contract to further bolster their bottom line, while other companies — big and small — struggle to compete,” said Cynthia Brown, the group’s senior ethics counsel. “The administration should be working to improve opportunities for all American businesses, not playing favorites.”RelatedDonald TrumpEthicsdefense departmentdell