Front-running GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump takes unqualified exception to a Forbes magazine estimate of his financial worth at $4.5 billion — excoriating the publication for making him look bad.
"I don't look good, to be honest,"
Trump tells Forbes in the interview set to appear in its Oct. 19 issue, and released online Tuesday. "I mean, I look better if I'm worth $10 billion than if I'm worth $4 billion."
The magazine maintains it conducted interviews with "more than 80 sources" to come up with a figure that's less than half the $10 billion at which
Trump has assessed his own worth — and above the
$3 billion Bloomberg figured that wealth to be.
"I'm running for president," the real estate and television billionaire tells Forbes. "I'm worth much more than you have me down [for]."
Trump ties for 121st place with Wal-Mart heiress Ann Walton Kroenke and entrepreneur Elizabeth Holmes on the list of the Forbes 400. The No. 1 spot goes to Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
"I think you're trying to make me as poor as possible," Trump tells Forbes, which reports the candidate's campaign filings claim his worth has risen this year alone from $8.7 billion to more than $10 billion.
The magazine reports Trump raises that figure to "much more than 10 billion" — and warns that another "respected magazine that's coming out" is going with $11.5 billion.
"You're gonna look bad," Trump tells the magazine, it reports. "And look, all I can say is Forbes is a bankrupt magazine, doesn't know what they're talking about. That's all I'm gonna say. 'Cause it's embarrassing to me."
He also tells the magazine he thinks a different methodology was used to value him than other real estate billionaires on the list.
"Because I'm famous, and they're not," he tells the magazine. "Because when [Richard] LeFrak had dinner at Joe's Stone Crab, he calls me up and he says, 'Could you help me get a reservation?' "
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