Axos Financial: how the US bank became one of Trump’s biggest backers
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The online lender has thrived as it helped extend $400m in loans with its biggest individual investor, Don Hankey. As the dust started to settle after the deadly 6 January Capitol attack in 2021, Donald Trump found himself losing corporate allies. Shocked by the rampage that followed efforts to overturn the US presidential election, companies at home and abroad were suspending political donations and reviewing their ties with the outgoing leader. Even Deutsche Bank – which had propped up the Trump Organization for two decades – decided it would no longer do business with the disgraced politician.
![[Kalyeena Makortoff]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2022/02/22/Kalyeena_Makortoff,_L.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
But as Deutsche’s support fell away, one midsized California-based bank was ready to fill the financial vacuum. Axos Financial has since become one of Trump’s biggest financial backers. With its biggest individual shareholder – the sub-prime auto king and billionaire Don Hankey – the NYSE-listed company has helped extend more than $400m (£318m) in loans to the returning president and his companies.
![[Donald Trump attends the closing arguments in the civil fraud trial in New York]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/083672d07c3dc823fb475611031de064601aa4c2/0_88_5900_3542/master/5900.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
And investors are betting that Axos will thrive under the returning president, having pushed shares to a record high above $80 after the November US presidential election. Axos was one of the first digital banks in the US, founded at the peak of the dotcom bubble at the turn of the millennium. Then known as the Bank of Internet USA (BoI), it offered customers 24/7 online access to their bank accounts, even on holidays: a point illustrated by its launch on US Independence Day on 4 July 2000.
