(Photo credit: Nathan Howard/POOL/AFP)The Cradle
JUL 16, 2026
Officials calculated profits from insider trading on the war at $9 billion by June and formally demanded that half be allocated to Iran
Iranian negotiators sent a private warning to US Vice President JD Vance earlier this year, saying that US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were “abusing” their roles in the talks to profit from financial markets, Drop Site News reported on 16 July.
The Iranian negotiators sent the warnings to Vance through an intermediary during the late June talks in Lake Lucerne in Switzerland, telling him the pair cared more about profiting from insider knowledge of the negotiations than reaching a deal to end the war on Iran.
The negotiators also said that Kushner had been repeatedly leaking details of the talks to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with one US official telling Axios that Witkoff and Kushner “talk almost every day to Netanyahu” and the head of Mossad.
The Vance outreach came after Tehran had already tried to alert the White House to the pair’s conduct, presenting evidence that “individuals close to [US] President [Donald] Trump” were abusing the war on Iran and diplomatic developments to manipulate financial markets, while warning of Witkoff’s “overall destructive role in the previous negotiation.”
Financial analysts have observed a pattern since the war began in late February of speculative bets and unusually large positions in war-linked markets – oil futures, energy stocks, and prediction markets – often preceded by Trump announcements timed just before Monday trading opens in the US, fueling public suspicion of insider trading.
Iran calculated the profits from these manipulations at around $9 billion by June and formally demanded in writing that half of it, $4.5 billion, be allocated to Tehran.
The official said the exchanged texts “will ultimately become part of the historical record.”
Financial disclosure forms released on 3 July revealed that President Trump’s income soared past $2.2 billion last year, largely built on cryptocurrency ventures that his own administration was regulating.
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported that Trump made around $1 billion from crypto deals, including a UAE state-linked investment in World Liberty Financial and proceeds from his $TRUMP memecoin, which later crashed in value by 97 percent.
Trump and those close to him have also profited from massive, highly suspicious trading spikes in oil futures and stock indexes occurring just minutes before the president issued major market-moving announcements on social media about the US war on Iran.
Economists, lawmakers, and market analysts have raised alarms over insider trading, data leaks, and market manipulation coming from the White House.
Almost $1 billion in oil futures trades were executed in early May in the minutes before an Axios report revealed a US-Iran memorandum aimed at ending the war.
Market observers noted the White House’s wild swings between war and peace rhetoric appeared to be little more than a vehicle for insiders to profit through coordinated trading on Polymarket and traditional commodities exchanges
Meanwhile, the Financial Times (FT) reported that the president’s sons, Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., were behind a $1.04-billion investment network funneling money into sectors championed by the White House, including drone companies pursuing Pentagon contracts.
The report also noted that Donald Trump Jr. serves as an advisor to Polymarket, where insider trading on US military action is reportedly rampant.
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The Most Revolutionary Act 