– Billions –
The Donald, as he is nicknamed, was born on June 14, 1946 in Queens, New York City, the fourth of five children.
His father Fred was a wealthy real estate developer and the son of German immigrants. His mother Mary was from Scotland.
Boisterous and unruly, he was packed off to New York Military Academy, a private boarding school near West Point, and graduated from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1968 with an economics degree.
He then set to work for his father, who made money building and operating middle-income apartments in New York’s outer boroughs. But Queens and Brooklyn were never going to be enough for the young Donald.
He shot off to Manhattan and the big league, snapping up some of the flashiest real estate in the country, riding the wave of Reaganomics and coming to embody the swanky extravagance of the 1980s.
His true wealth is up for dispute. Trump told the Federal Election Commission he has more than $10 billion. Forbes insists it is no more than $4.5 billion.
But there is barely a corner of Manhattan that the Trump Organization hasn’t conquered with luxury buildings. Its portfolio of hotels, golf courses, casinos and luxury estates straddles the world, from California to Mumbai.
He has written a string of best-selling business books and cemented his fame by starring in NBC reality series “The Apprentice,” which spawned “The Celebrity Apprentice” – until the network dumped him for offending Mexicans.
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