Rosenberg, whom Trump would eventually owe $1.1 million, walked down the hall and entered his brother’s office. “We got next to nothing,” says Michael MacLeod, whose 40-person studio made the giant elephant statues at the entrance to Taj. It took years to get the rest, assuming the companies survived long enough to collect. A year later, when the casino collapsed into bankruptcy, those owed the most got only 33 cents in cash for each dollar owed, with promises of another 50 cents later. And when it went south, his moves to avoid a financial hit to his empire hobbled many small businesses with little cushion to absorb the blow.Īfter the Taj opened in April 1990, the self-anointed “King of Debt” owed $70 million to 253 contractors employing thousands who built the domes and minarets, put up the glass and drywall, laid the pipes and installed everything from chandeliers to bathroom fixtures.
It was his biggest gamble, the “eighth wonder of the world,” as he dubbed it. Of all the real estate and casino deals in Trump’s long career, the Taj arguably sheds the most light on how the would-be U.S.
