Donald Trump spent much of 2026 publicly praising Dell, but newly disclosed transactions show investments held in his name were later reduced after the stock’s extraordinary AI-driven rally.
A federal ethics disclosure released Thursday showed one of his independently managed accounts sold between $500,001 and $1 million of Dell Technologies shares on August 21, followed by another $15,001-$50,000 sale on August 28.
The trades came months after Trump repeatedly urged Americans to “go out and buy a Dell computer”.
There is no evidence Trump personally directed either sale. The White House says third-party financial institutions manage his portfolio independently, while the Trump Organization says Trump and his family do not select or approve individual trades.
Trump praised Dell before his managers started selling
Trump’s portfolio bought between $1 million and $5 million of Dell shares on February 10. Nine days later, during remarks in Rome, Georgia, he praised Michael and Susan Dell and told the audience to “go out and buy a Dell computer”.
He repeated it at a July 6 White House event linked to Trump Accounts.
However, by August, Dell had become one of 2026’s biggest stock-market winners. The new filing shows the portfolio sold $500,001-$1 million of Dell on August 21 and another $15,001-$50,000 a week later.
That sequence is striking, but it is not evidence of a personally directed trade.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told Reuters that “all investment decisions are made entirely by independent managers”.
The relevant contrast is therefore between Trump’s public praise and the activity of outside portfolio managers.
Dell’s AI rally gave managers a reason to take profits
The sales also make more sense against Dell’s share-price move.
Dell closed at $574.55 on Thursday, leaving the stock up about 356% in 2026. That gain reflects a dramatic rerating as AI infrastructure demand transformed expectations for the company’s server business.
Dell’s latest quarter underscored why. The company booked $60.9 billion of AI-server orders, recognised $16.4 billion of AI-server revenue and exited the period with a record $95 billion backlog. Management raised its full-year AI-server revenue forecast to $74 billion.
Yet valuation has become harder to ignore after such a rapid move.
Morgan Stanley analyst Erik Woodring described enterprise hardware spending as “undeniably strong” and said Dell was “clearly out-executing” competitors. Even so, Morgan Stanley kept an Equal Weight rating and a $511 price target.
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Wall Street still likes Dell, but the easy upside has narrowed
Mizuho analyst Vijay Rakesh this week raised his Dell target to $650 from $600 and maintained an Outperform rating, arguing that “agentic AI adoption is accelerating”.
The view is that new AI workloads should keep supporting demand for servers and related infrastructure.
TD Cowen is more cautious. Analyst Krish Sankar raised his target to $550 from $500 but kept a Hold rating, highlighting Dell’s $95 billion AI-server backlog while warning that memory constraints could become a risk in 2027.
The broader consensus remains positive, but targets are increasingly clustering around the current share price after this year’s surge.
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