B
enzinga and Yahoo Finance LLC may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below. When President Donald Trump recounts his origin story, it often begins with a single line: "My father gave me a small loan of a million dollars." However, this narrative glosses over the fact that Fred C. Trump, Donald's father, was already a successful developer by the 1960s, having built more than 27,000 apartments across Queens and Brooklyn.

    Fred's fortune in the hundreds of millions demonstrated the profitability of housing when demand and government financing aligned. When Donald stepped into the real estate world, his father provided crucial support. For instance, during the Grand Hyatt Hotel project in the late 1970s, Fred jointly guaranteed a $70 million construction loan with Hyatt, vouching for Donald's ability to complete the job.

    This pattern of parental support continued over the years. In 1976, Fred set up trusts worth $1 million each for his children and grandchildren. By the mid-1980s, casino filings showed that Donald owed around $14 million to his father and family businesses. When Donald's casinos faced financial difficulties, Fred bought $3.5 million in gaming chips that were never used, providing a liquidity boost to keep payments flowing.

    Decades later, the scale of Donald's inheritance came into focus. In 2018, The New York Times reported that he received at least $413 million (adjusted for inflation) from his father's empire.