> How does his long-term success compare to other well-known businesses? You mean, how does it compare to two cherry-picked extremely successful businesses (and one other one thrown in for "objectivity")?
Cherry picking successful businesses seems like fair play when you are evaluating his claims of business success. McDonald's doesn't seem like a terrible choice, it's not exactly in an exciting high growth industry. I guess it would be a good idea to do a couple of baskets though, to compare to market average returns.
If you compare Trump to the S&P 500 over this time, he beats it if you don't account for dividends and loses to it if you do.