In a deal announced in 2025, Kazakhstan President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev revealed that the Central Asian country had awarded a $1.6 billion tungsten mining contract to the United States. Skyline Builders, a construction company in which Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump hold a 20% stake following a $20 million investment, stands to profit from this project.

The Trump Organization, led by the president's eldest sons, denies any wrongdoing. It states that the investment through Dominari Securities in Skyline Builders was passive, made before the tungsten deal was finalized, and without knowledge that Kazakhstan would award the mining contract to the U.S.

Andrew Stoltmann, a Chicago-based securities and investment fraud attorney, told Fox News Digital that while suspicions exist, evidence of wrongdoing is likely impossible to find, acknowledging a "proof problem." He said, "Well, the question is whether President Trump would have known about his sons’ investments in this company, and I think the answer would be ‘no’ unless the sons told them."

Stoltmann added that because the Trump brothers are not government employees, there are no real duties to disclose passive investments. He noted, "It's fun to have conjecture. It's fun to theorize, and it's fun to discuss this, but I don't think there's any duty of disclosure when you are a passive investor in a company, and that's where President Trump would most certainly say, 'I don't know all the things my sons do.'"

The optics of the situation remain controversial, with questions about what former President Trump knew and when. Meanwhile, President Trump has been visiting his Trump Turnberry golf course and Trump International Golf Links in Scotland during a brief visit from July 25 to 29, 2026.

Sources