Trump says only took USD 1 (equivalent to USD 13 thousand) per year. He did not know the salary he received, Trump insists only received USD 1 though later Stahl said that the presidential salary a year, amounting to USD 400 thousand (equivalent to USD 5.3 billion). "No, I would not take it," he said.
Trump is not the first official who requested minimum salary. Herbert Hoover, who later became a millionaire mine and the US president John F Kennedy, also choose not to receive a salary and donate it to charity. Even though with the former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
In addition to state officials, prominent CEOs also do so. As Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, as well as Hewlett Packard CEO Meg Whitman Enterprise.
But, despite not getting a salary, the business leaders receive a salary in other ways. Including shares in their companies and other performance-based compensation. Apple founder Steve Jobs also popularized the concept of salary of USD 1 in Silicon Valley after returning to the helm of the company in 1997.
Quoted by the BBC, business executives actually have sacrificed their salaries since World War I and World War II. They consist of leading executives, bankers and manufacturers, who volunteered to help the government during World War I. The idea was later resurfaced during World War II, with the executives from industry giants such as Lockheed, Chrysler, and Boeing.