Trump's "success" formula: how breaking the rules became the ideology of US’s new leadership
In 1995, Donald Trump took his hotel-casino company, DJT, public. At the time, the company owned just one operational hotel in Atlantic City and an unfinished one in Indiana. Strong financial reports and optimistic forecasts attracted mass investors.
The following year, the newly public company acquired two more hotels, both burdened with debt, that had previously been Trump’s personal assets. The purchase price was significantly overvalued.
This simple scheme not only transferred Trump’s personal debts onto the investors of the public company but also added about $100 million in pure profit to his private accounts.
From that moment on, the company never recovered financially. Its remnants were finally shut down in 2016 after yet another bankruptcy.
Trump walked away with profits. The investors who believed in his business acumen lost significant money.
Read more to understand about Donald Trump’s management style and that of his inner circle in the column by strategic communications consultant Yaryna Kliuchkovska: Trump's "success" formula: how breaking the rules became the ideology of US’s new leadership.
According to Kliuchkovska, the DJT hotel-casino story illustrates not just Trump's poor management or dishonest business practices but also his fundamental inability to operate successfully within externally established rules.
"He only wins by breaking the rules or imposing his own," she writes.
Interestingly, she argues that this trait connects Trump to another entrepreneur who has made an enormous fortune but dislikes playing by the rules – Elon Musk.
Musk, like Vice President J.D. Vance, comes from Silicon Valley, a place with its own distinct management culture. Kliuchkovska believes that culture is best summed up by an early Facebook motto from when the company was still private: "Move fast and break things."
"In other words, don’t be afraid to destroy, as long as you’re moving forward," she explains.
She notes that this mindset gave rise to Mark Zuckerberg and Meta, a company that profits from privacy while disregarding user protection. It also fueled Google, which, like a raging T-Rex, monopolised a vast market and devoured the revenues of adjacent industries. And Theranos, whose founders successfully deceived even the most seasoned venture capitalists out of millions.
Kliuchkovska points out that both Musk and Trump, who now wield power in the US, behave not like heads of state, but like CEOs of private companies.
"Their own companies. Where they can and must set their own rules. Where they are not bound by the regulations imposed on public businesses," she writes.
That, she argues, is why they speak of annexing Canada or Greenland, it’s merely an "unfriendly takeover" of another business to boost profit margins. That’s also why they disregard the sovereignty of Denmark, Panama, or Ukraine – because, in their worldview, the market is ruled by those who control the largest share.
Right now, Ukraine looks like one of those "things" that can be broken on the way to success, Kliuchkovska warns.
"It is already clear that concepts like 'the rule of law' and 'a rules-based international order' mean absolutely nothing to America’s new leadership," she concludes.