Donald Trump is now known as the President of the United States but he's also been a reality TV star, actor, and real estate developer. But did you know what his first job was?
For many of us, it may have been retail work or the restaurant business, but not for 80-year-old Donald, who took to Instagram to share a video with followers and shared that his first job was working with his father to inspect million-dollar properties in New York City.
"So many people ask me what was my first job? What do I remember? And I think it was a great memory because I'd go around, and my father was in the real estate business," Donald said in the video, which you can watch below.
"I'd check buildings, I'd look at sites and check buildings, and we'd go around and see if they're clean and properly done and everything perfect."
"He was a stickler for perfection and I learned a lot from that, and I'm a stickler for perfection also," he concluded.
© Getty ImagesDonald's father, Fred, was a highly successful real estate developer, building thousands of middle-income houses, apartments, and barracks in Queens and other areas of New York City.
It was a business begun by his own father, Friedrich, who died when Fred was 12.
Friedrich left behind a fortune worth $31,359 ($615,000 in 2026) and Fred's mother, Elisabeth, took over the portfolio of properties and land her late husband had purchased, building new homes and selling them, as well as brokering mortgages.
© Bettmann ArchiveElisabeth – who had been deported from Germany with Fredreich after he was accused of avoiding military service – later changed her name to the American spelling, Elizabeth.
Fred began taking night classes in construction, carpentry and plumbing, and by the 1920s, Fred had turned their company – now known as the Trump Organization – into one of the premier construction companies in New York City.
When the Great Depression hit in 1933, he purchased a mortgage company that had declared bankruptcy, nd their properties, and sold them on for profit.
But he was not without controversy: Fred was arrested in 1927 at a Ku Klux Klan rally, and in the 1970s was accused of infringing the Fair Housing Act of 1968 by refusing to lease to black tenants.
He was also accused of windfall profiteering.
Fred planned to hand the business over to his eldest son, Fred Jr, but he showed an interest in becoming a pilot and instead the business went to Donald who tax records sensationally revealed in 2018, had been earning around $200,000 a year since he was three, making him a millionaire by the age of eight.
© AFP via Getty ImageThe President's property empire has also been embroiled in scandal, with accusations of inflated metrics.
In 2023, a judge declared that Trump and his company massively overvalued assets and created “a fantasy world” on financial statements given to financial institutions.
