Trump purchased Axon Enterprise stock on Feb. 10. ICE posted a notice seeking roughly 17,800 new Tasers on Feb. 24
Bloomberg / Getty Images
Federal disclosures show that on Feb. 10, President Donald Trump made an Axon Enterprise stock purchase valued at between $1 million and $5 million. That was roughly two weeks before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement moved to solicit a five-year, $220 million Taser contract that procurement reviewers and policing experts described to CNBC as effectively written for Axon's product line.
Although the Feb. 24 ICE notice never mentions Axon by name, its technical requirements — among them a 45-foot effective range and 10 individually deployable probes — track closely with the TASER 10 model, and experts who reviewed the solicitation said the specifications would effectively exclude any rival bidder. Axon makes roughly 90% of U.S. Tasers, according to CNBC. If finalized, the purchase would more than quadruple ICE's current Taser supply.
There's no evidence to suggest Trump played any role in shaping the procurement, that acquisition officials had been made aware of his stake, or that Axon was in any way informed that the president owned its stock. The stock purchases did not become public until Trump's financial disclosure was released in May.
The White House said Trump's assets are held in a trust managed by his children and that investments are handled by independent third-party firms. "There are no conflicts of interest," White House spokesperson Anna Kelly said.
Ethics experts told CNBC the concern centers on the appearance of a conflict rather than proof of wrongdoing. "The concern is that [Trump] bought into a company whose business could grow if his own administration expands immigration enforcement," Jordan Libowitz, vice president of communications at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said.
Deborah Fleischaker, a former acting chief of staff at ICE during the Biden administration and now a senior advisor at UnidosUS, said the timing "raises red flags," while cautioning it is impossible from public records to determine whether anything improper occurred. "It is not smart to buy stock in a company that was impacted by the decisions you would be making at the agency," Fleischaker said.
Measured from Trump's purchase date through June 26, Axon shares had climbed about 7%, a gain that — if he acquired stock near the upper boundary of the reported range — would translate to a paper profit of roughly $350,000, according to the outlet. The shares had surged more than 22% at their peak in the weeks after his buy before giving back a portion of those gains; separately, the seven days immediately following ICE's contract notice saw the stock jump more than 34%.
Federal procurement records show no contract has been awarded. CNBC, reports that the contract's cost and recent turnover in DHS leadership have slowed its progress, though the department is not expected to abandon the effort.
The Axon purchase was part of broader trading activity. Trump's OGE disclosures, filed May 14, recorded more than 3,700 transactions in the first quarter of 2026 — including positions in Nvidia $NVDA, Microsoft $MSFT, Amazon $AMZN, and Palantir $PLTR — with cumulative estimated value between $220 million and $750 million.
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