In early April 2026, social media users claimed an anonymous investor with connections to U.S. President Donald Trump's administration staked $51 million on the prediction that the price of oil would drop
According to posts circulating on X, Instagram and Facebook, the alleged "oil short" resulted in $170 million in profit for the anonymous Trump ally.
Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom's office also shared the claim in an April 8 X post, alongside the caption, "While you're paying billions more at the gas pump, Trump's allies are cashing in."
The claim originated from an April 8 Facebook post (archived) from Really American, a left-leaning, anti-Trump media outlet. The post claimed to show one account's trades in
(Brent crude oil, sometimes referred to as "Brent crude" or "Brent oil," is a designation for certain kinds of crude oil. The term also refers to a futures contract — agreements to buy or sell oil at a set price at a predetermined future date — for this type of oil, which serves as one of the benchmarks for oil pricing worldwide. The other is the West Texas Intermediate.)
The screenshot in Really American's post did not include the username of the account that made the trades, making it impossible for Snopes to verify the screenshot was unaltered or to assess whether the user had any connection to Trump. (Traders' portfolios change often, meaning that by the time we sought to verify the information, we could not identify a specific Hyperdash user who may have run this trade.) It was unclear whether learning the username of the trader would make it possible to tie this person to the Trump administration, as Hyperdash users often trade anonymously.
As such, we have left the claim unrated.
We reached out to Really American's founder, Justin Horwitz, to ask who the
Despite the fact that Snopes could not verify the details of Really American's post, it's true that thousands of shorts on oil prices took place on April 7, 2026, minutes before Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran on his social network, Truth Social. The evidence aligns with a reported pattern of
In an email, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said any implication that Trump administration officials use nonpublic information for financial benefit "without evidence is baseless and irresponsible reporting."
"The only special interest that will ever guide President Trump is the best interest of the American people," Ingle
The White House did not immediately respond to a follow-up inquiry asking about potential insider trading by private individuals with connections to Trump.
Really American's post claimed the screenshot proved that insider trading was happening either inside or in connection with the White House:
A private individual is placing a $51 million bet that oil prices are about to collapse — hours before a sitting president announces a ceasefire that collapses oil prices. Not once. Sixteen times. Zero losses.
There are only two explanations and both should terrify you.
Either someone inside the White House — or with direct access to it — is leaking ceasefire negotiations to traders before diplomats, before the press, before the American people hear a single word. That is insider trading. That is corruption.
That is a federal crime.
While the post included an image of two of Trump's sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, the text of the post did not speculate on whom the anonymous trader was. Further, it was unclear whether the username would be enough evidence to identify the user as a Trump ally.
Horwitz started the Really American political action committee in June 2020 and "produced election ads viewed over 100 million times, organically, in the 2020 election cycle on social media," according to his LinkedIn profile.
Why a ceasefire would cause the price of oil to drop
Trump posted at 6:32 p.m. EDT April 7 that he agreed "to suspend the bombing and attack of Iran for a period of two weeks." He added, "This will be a double sided CEASEFIRE!" (archived):
(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)
One of the conditions, Trump said, was that Iran should agree "to the COMPLETE, IMMEDIATE, and SAFE OPENING of the Strait of Hormuz," meaning that the nation would let oil tankers pass through the strait to export oil extracted in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian Peninsula, thus allowing oil markets to normalize.
In other words, the direct result of a ceasefire would be a drop in oil prices, and those betting against oil in the moments prior to the announcement would be in a position to profit significantly from these transactions.
At 7:42 p.m., Trump posted a statement from Iran's government, confirming the ceasefire and saying it would reopen the Strait of Hormuz (archived):
(Truth Social user @realDonaldTrump)
A search on TradingView, a charting platform that uses real-time data, revealed that one or more
The massive volume of transactions occurring within the same 60 seconds followed the pattern of well-timed trading the BBC and other outlets established.
Investors rarely trade in such large volumes across London and U.S. markets after "settlement," which occurs at 6:30 p.m. UTC, or 2:30 p.m. EDT. That is because the post-settlement market tends to be more volatile and riskier. Traders typically wait for the next day's opening price to set new bets.
At 2:27 p.m. EDT, the chart for WTI futures (ticker CL1! on TradingView) showed traders had made 795 bets the price of oil would fall.
Snopes annotated the graphic in blue for clarity — the volume data appears at the bottom as a bar chart; red indicates sell contracts and green indicates buying contracts:
(Image courtesy of Trading View, annotated by Snopes)
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(Image courtesy of Trading View, annotated by Snopes)
Lastly, contracts for
(Image courtesy of Trading View, annotated by Snopes)
For further reading, Snopes has investigated several allegations of insider trading tied to the Trump administration, including the rumor that his son Barron Trump bought $30 million in oil before the war on Iran began.