Raphael Stevens

President Donald Trump’s proposed $5 million “gold card” for U.S. residency would be one the most expensive in the world, according to experts.
It also includes a tax loophole that would give the new-card holders a lucrative benefit not available to American citizens
Trump said gold-card holders would not be subject to taxes on their overseas income.

A version of this article first appeared in CNBC’s Inside Wealth newsletter with Robert Frank, a weekly guide to the high net worth investor and consumer. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox.
President Donald Trump’s proposed $5 million “gold card” for U.S. residency would be one the most expensive in the world, according to experts.

Yet it also includes a tax loophole that would give the new-card holders a lucrative benefit not available to American citizens, experts say.
Trump this week announced the creation of a new investment visa that gives the overseas wealthy permanent residency and a path to citizenship in return for $5 million. Attorneys who advise the wealthy on migration and investment visas say demand is already strong.
“The introduction of the gold card visa program represents a unique opportunity for high-net-worth individuals looking to secure U.S. residence with a pathway to citizenship,” said Dominic Volek, head of private clients at Henley & Partners. “The U.S. remains the undisputed leader in private wealth creation and accumulation.”
Volek and others who cater to the global rich say they’ve already fielded calls from clients wanting to purchase a Trump gold card. Approximately 135,000 of the world’s millionaires are projected to migrate to a new country in 2025, according to Henley. The United Arab Emirates and the U.S. typically top the list of destinations.
“I think it’s going to sell like crazy,” Trump said at his first Cabinet news conference Wednesday. “It’s a bargain.”

While the details remain unclear, the proposal would radically change the U.S. residency path for the global rich, who currently have to navigate a patchwork of programs with tight restrictions to stay in the country. It would also mark a major potential tax change for the global rich living in the U.S., carving out a new loophole for gold-card holders.
Currently, U.S. citizens, permanent residents, and green-card holders are required to pay income tax on their U.S. earnings as well as any income they earn overseas, including in their home country. The U.S. tax on worldwide income has traditionally made U.S. residency or citizenship far less attractive for the global rich, who have businesses spread across the world and often sheltered in tax havens.
Trump said gold-card holders would not be subject to taxes on their overseas income. The provision means that gold-card residents will be able to purchase a tax benefit not available to U.S. citizens. Advisors say they’re waiting on clearer directives, since the program could create dual classes of taxpayers among the American wealthy.
Yet the international income carve-out makes it far more attractive to the world’s ultra-wealthy.
“This would be a big departure” in tax treatment, said Laura Foote Reiff, an attorney at Greenberg Traurig who specializes in business immigration. “There are many wealthy individuals who are invested in U.S. companies or have families here that do not become permanent residents because they don’t want the tax consequences.”

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The tax loophole is one reason the government can charge a premium for the gold card. At $5 million, the program would be among the most expensive in the world. Volek said Singapore’s Global Investor Program requires an investment of 10 million Singapore dollars, or about $7.5 million. New Zealand’s most expensive program requires an investment of up to 10 million New Zealand dollars, or about $5.7 million. 
Most investment visa programs around the world cost less than $1 million, attorneys say.
About 100 countries offer some type of investment visa program, with about 60 jurisdictions actively promoting their programs, according to Henley. Roughly 30 programs dominate the $20 billion a year investment migration business, with Malta, the UAE, Portugal, Italy and several jurisdictions in the Caribbean being the most popular.
At Wednesday’s news conference, Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said the U.S. gold card would replace the current investment visa program, called EB-5, which offers green cards to those who invest at least $900,000 or $1.8 million, depending on the area and project. The EB-5 program been plagued by delays and a history of fraud and abuse. The program was renewed by Congress in 2022 with major changes that required the investments to be channeled to more rural, poor areas and to infrastructure projects.
When it comes to applicants, China has been far and away the largest source of those seeking EB-5 visas, with Taiwan, Vietnam and India also ranking high. The U.S. issued just more than 12,000 EB-5 visas last year, with two-thirds going to Chinese nationals, according to the State Department. 
The wealthy Chinese are also the dominant users of investment visa programs around the world, including in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.
While Trump said the U.S. could sell a million gold cards, attorneys say the likely demand is a fraction of that total – perhaps thousands but not hundreds of thousands. There are about 424,000 people in the world worth $30 million or more, with 148,000 of them in the U.S., leaving about 277,000 overseas ultra-wealthy who could reasonably afford the program.
Yet only a small fraction of them would likely apply to live in the U.S., immigration attorneys say. Last year, the U.S. had a net inflow of about 3,800 millionaires according to Henley.
“Hundreds of thousands sounds high,” Foote Reiff said. “There may be businesses that would pay to bring in top talent, like research scientists that they want to bring here and not be subject to quotas.”
One big draw of the new program is tax benefits. Historically, permanent residents in the U.S. have to pay income tax on their U.S. earnings as well as any income they earn overseas, including in their home country. The U.S. tax on worldwide income makes it far less attractive for the global rich who have businesses spread across the world and often sheltered in tax havens.
Trump said he expects the biggest demand will be from companies (especially in tech, like Apple) seeking to hire top college graduates in the U.S. who come from India, China or other countries but can’t get proper visas.

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Paramount Global is ending several diversity, equity and inclusion policies related to data collection and staffing.
The company cited President Donald Trump’s executive order banning DEI in the government and directing agencies to probe private companies over their programs.
Fellow media giant Comcast is under investigation by the federal government for its DEI policies.

The Paramount Global headquarters in New York on Aug. 27, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Paramount Global told its employees this week that it’s ending numerous diversity, equity and inclusion policies, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.
In the memo sent to employees Wednesday, Paramount said it would comply with President Donald Trump’s executive order banning the practice in the federal government and demanding that agencies investigate private companies over their DEI programs.

Co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy and Brian Robbins cited the executive order in the memo, as well as the Supreme Court and federal mandates, as the impetus for the media giant’s policy changes.
Among the changes, the company said it “will no longer set or use aspirational numerical goals related to the race, ethnicity, sex or gender of hires.” Paramount also said it ended its policy of collecting such stats for its U.S. job applicants on forms and career pages, except in the markets where it’s legally required to do so.
“To be the best storytellers and to continue to drive success, we must have a highly talented, dedicated and creative workforce that reflects the perspectives and experiences of our many different audiences. Values like inclusivity and collaboration are a part of the Paramount culture and will continue to be,” the co-CEOs wrote in the memo.
They added that they will continue to evaluate their policies and seek talent from all backgrounds.
Paramount has taken part in a number of diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. It donated millions to racial justice causes in 2020 after the police murder of George Floyd and has touted initiatives such as a supplier diversity program and Content for Change, a campaign to overhaul storytelling about racial equity and mental health. The company has hosted an annual Inclusion Week for years and maintains an Office of Global Inclusion.

“Diversity, equity and inclusion is fundamental to our business,” former CEO Bob Bakish said at Paramount’s 2023 Inclusion Week, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Paramount joins companies like Walmart, Target and Amazon in rolling back their DEI goals and policies in recent months. Others, like Apple and Costco, have publicly defended and committed to their DEI stances, even as the Trump administration has escalated its attacks on the practices.
Media companies have taken a variety of steps to respond to the Trump administration’s policy changes since the president’s inauguration last month.
Earlier this month, Disney changed its DEI programs, which included updating performance factors and rebranding initiatives and employee resource groups, among other things.
Around the same time, public broadcaster PBS — which, as a recipient of federal funding, is more directly affected by Trump’s order than corporations are — said it would shut down its DEI office. CNBC reported that DEI employees would exit the company in order for it to stay in compliance with Trump’s executive order.
Meanwhile, the Federal Communications Commission began investigating Comcast over its DEI efforts. Trump’s executive order, signed on his first day in office, directs federal agencies to identify and probe “most egregious and discriminatory DEI practitioners” in their sectors. Comcast previously said in a statement it would cooperate with the investigation.
Disclosure: Comcast owns NBCUniversal, the parent company of CNBC. More

Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday it added 6.4 million global streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter for a total of 116.9 million subscribers.
Fourth-quarter revenue for the streaming segment, which is anchored by flagship service Max, totaled $2.65 billion, up 5% from $2.53 billion in the same quarter last year.
In a shareholder letter, the company forecast adjusted EBITDA of $1.3 billion for its streaming business for the year and said it has a “clear path” to hit 150 million global subscribers by the end of 2026.

A sign outside of the Warner Brothers Discovery Techwood Turner Broadcasting campus is seen on June 26, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia.
Kevin Dietsch | Getty Images

Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday it added 6.4 million global streaming subscribers in the fourth quarter for a total of 116.9 million subscribers.
Fourth-quarter revenue for the streaming segment, which is anchored by flagship service Max, totaled $2.65 billion, up 5% from $2.53 billion in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization for the unit came in at $409 million, compared to an adjusted EBITDA loss of $55 million in the fourth quarter of 2023.

In a shareholder letter, the company forecast adjusted EBITDA of $1.3 billion for its streaming business for the year — roughly double the $677 million adjusted EBITDA it reported for 2024 — and said it has a “clear path” to hit 150 million global subscribers by the end of 2026. Max is set to launch on television service Sky in the United Kingdom and Ireland by the second quarter of 2026, and will debut in Germany and Italy in the first quarter of that year.
“In this generational media disruption, only the global streamers will survive and prosper, and Max is just that,” CEO David Zaslav said on the company’s earnings call on Thursday.
The media and entertainment company announced Wednesday that Max would keep its B/R Sports and CNN content available at no additional cost to subscribers in its standard and premium tiers. Initially WBD planned to charge an additional cost for sports.
However, it will pull both verticals from its basic, ad-supported tier beginning March 30.
Here’s how Warner Bros. Discovery performed in the fourth quarter of 2024 compared with what Wall Street was expecting, based on a survey of analysts by LSEG:

Loss per share: 20 cents vs. earnings per share of 1 cent expected
Revenue: $10.03 billion vs. $10.19 billion expected

WBD’s overall fourth-quarter revenue fell 2% to $10.03 billion from $10.28 billion during the same quarter in 2023. Full-year 2024 revenue came in at $39.32 billion, down 5% from $41.32 billion in 2023.
Warner Bros. Discovery reported a net loss of $494 million for the fourth quarter of 2024, or a loss of 20 cents per share, compared with a net loss of $400 million, or a loss of 16 cents per share, during the fourth quarter of 2023.
TV networks revenue came in at $4.77 billion, compared to $5.04 billion in the year-earlier period. The company previously wrote down $9.1 billion for its networks business in its 2024 second-quarter earnings report. In its shareholder letter, Warner Bros. Discovery noted that it expects further declines in cable subscribers and that the advertising market for U.S. linear television is shrinking faster than expected.
For the studios business, fourth-quarter revenue totaled $3.66 billion, an increase of 15% from $3.17 billion in the fourth quarter of 2023.
“We are laser-focused on getting our studios back to a place of industry leadership,” Zaslav said.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates. More