and sorry, i misremembered the numbers. he got over $400 million (at least) from dad, and that would be worth about $2 billion if simply invested in an index fund (according to the article).
yes, but that doesn't matter. at the end, they estimate the current value from indexing to be about $2B.
the trump wealth transfer started over 60 years ago. over the long run, market timing doesn't matter that much.
(EDIT: and that opinion piece was not coherent; the author mixed up trump's businesses with his net worth, and convoluted other finance concepts to render his desired "opinion". it was awful.)
That's just not the case - if you assume he bought in during a low point you'll get a much higher figure.
Besides, there's no claim that he was given anywhere close to $400M over 60 years ago, nor can anyone be realistically expected to invest their inheritance starting at the age of 12.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2015-09-03/should... is a good critique of these kinds of calculations in general - they usually assume perfect market timing