Trump Has 3,643 Websites That Range From TrumpEmpire.com To TrumpFraud.org
CNN/Stylemagazine.com Newswire | 2/20/2017, 4:45 p.m.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Donald Trump has a vast online portfolio of domain names -- digital addresses that foreshadowed his political career, business projects and accusations of unethical behavior.
Before he reached the White House, Trump's company had laid claim to at least 3,643 website domains, according to internet records gathered by CNNMoney.
The buying spree continued as he ran for president. Trump bought 93 of them after he launched his presidential campaign.
One was TrumpEmpire.com. That domain had belonged to a Mexican cybersquatter. Luis Jorge O'Brien Covarrubias is a civil engineer in Guadalajara, Mexico. He bought TrumpEmpire for $10 in April 2015 hoping that someday he'd be able to cash in on the property. When no deal came around, he didn't bother to renew it.
O'Brien didn't know that Trump had snapped it up in June 2016 until he was told by CNNMoney.
Now O'Brien wishes he would have kept the domain out of Trump's hands.
"What did I do?" he lamented. "He's rude to people. He mistreats everyone. Now he has an empire -- in every meaning of the word."
CNNMoney investigated 20 years of internet records using DomainTools, which tracks registrations and transfers. Some are obvious choices he acquired long ago, like TrumpOrganization.com and TrumpBuilding.org.
But Trump has also grabbed names that could be used against him, including TrumpFraud.org and TrumpScam.com.
The Trump Organization and the White House did not immediately respond to CNNMoney's questions about his collection of domains.
Trump has a history of buying site names before he needs them.
For example, he bought TrumpNetwork.com in 2007 in preparation to launch a multi-level marketing company, in the style of Amway and Herbalife. This is a controversial type of business that offers people the promise of self-employment and high salary as long as they recruit others -- who in turn must find even more recruits.
MLMs, as they're called, are often accused of being pyramid schemes. Trump saw that coming.
In the months before he launched Trump Network in 2009, he acquired TrumpMultiLevelMarketing.com, TrumpNetworkFraud.com, TrumpNetworkPyramidScheme.com, TrumpNetworkPonziScheme.com and 15 similar iterations. He sold the business in 2012.
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