--- title: Some Genius Bought TrumpPence2016.com for $10 in April description: The wizard who bought the domain name for the campaign as an "investment" expects to rake in up to six figures. authors: - name: Ethan Wolff-Mann url: https://money.com/author/ethan-wolff-mann/ at_money_since: 2015 articles: 160 covers: - Economy and Politics - Banking - Business - Career Advice - Credit - Credit Cards - Education - Housing - Identity Theft - Insurance - Investing - Lifestyle - Personal Finance - Professional Services - Shopping - Taxes - Technology social: - https://x.com/ewolffmann former_staff: true published: '2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z' modified: '2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z' section: Economy and Politics tags: - 2016 Campaign - 2016 Election - Donald Trump 2016 - Mike Pence word_count: 294 canonical: https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/ type: Article source: structured-blocks --- > **Disclosure:** We research all brands listed and may earn a fee from our partners. Research and financial considerations may influence how brands are displayed. Not all brands are included. [Learn more](https://money.com/page/disclaimer/). ![US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP](https://img.money.com/2016/07/gettyimages-546638172.jpg) *Pence and Trump make their debut.* Every time there's a new social media service, people jump to snag @nike, @coke, @barackobama, and more on Twitter. It's called "squatting" on a domain, and squatters can often sell their handle to a brand that was too slow to the draw. Usually people don't use these accounts, so the platform gives them to the brands that want to use them, [according to Twitter's user policy](https://support.twitter.com/articles/18370). But if a user is active, they usually keep it (see this [funny piece](http://www.gq.com/story/gq-twitter-account-interview) in GQ about a Russian guy who has the @GQ Twitter handle and uses it). This was the idea behind the genius who nabbed TrumpPence2016.com in April for just $10. Shannon Burchett saw the future in the spring and purchased a flurry of Trump/Pence [domain names](https://whois.icann.org/en/lookup?name=trumppence2016.com) when demand was nonexistent. Speaking with the *[Atlantic](http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/trump-pence-domain/491705/?utm_source=atlfb),* Burchett said he considered the purchase an "investment" and that it may pay out in six figures. In reality, it was more of a gamble, something that Burchett admitted, likening it to winning the lottery. Should it sell for the low six-figure sum of $100,000, that would be a nice 999,900% ROI. Speculating on VP picks isn't a particularly sound investment strategy, but legit-sounding website domain names have a history of being a part of political subterfuge. As the *Atlantic* notes, TedCruzforAmerica.com was a site exhorting people to emigrate to Canada and JebBush.com was a redirect to the Trump campaign page. Because of this, it's possible that the potential buyer of TrumpPence2016.com won't come from the campaign at all. While the only likely bidder for a squatted Twitter account in the case of a company is *that* company, politicians are in a race replete with ruthless enemies who would love to have some creative fun with a topical domain name. ```json { "@context": "https://schema.org", "@graph": [ { "@type": "BreadcrumbList", "@id": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/#breadcrumb", "itemListElement": [ { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 1, "name": "Home", "item": "https://money.com" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 2, "name": "Economy and Politics", "item": "https://money.com/economy-and-politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 3, "name": "Politics", "item": "https://money.com/politics/" }, { "@type": "ListItem", "position": 4, "name": "Some Genius Bought TrumpPence2016.com for $10 in April" } ] }, { "@type": "WebSite", "@id": "https://money.com/#website", "url": "https://money.com", "name": "Money", "publisher": { "@id": "https://money.com/#organization" } }, { "@type": "WebPage", "@id": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/#webpage", "url": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/", "name": "Some Genius Bought TrumpPence2016.com for $10 in April", "isPartOf": { "@id": "https://money.com/#website" }, "datePublished": "2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z", "mainEntity": { "@id": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/" }, "inLanguage": "en-US", "breadcrumb": { "@id": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/#breadcrumb" }, "dateModified": "2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z" }, { "@type": "Article", "headline": "Some Genius Bought TrumpPence2016.com for $10 in April", "articleSection": "Economy and Politics", "image": [ { "@type": "ImageObject", "url": "https://img.money.com/2016/07/gettyimages-546638172.jpg", "width": 4373, "height": 2821, "caption": "US-VOTE-REPUBLICANS-TRUMP" } ], "author": [ { "@type": "Person", "name": "Ethan Wolff-Mann", "url": "https://money.com/author/ethan-wolff-mann/", "@id": "https://money.com/author/ethan-wolff-mann/#author", "sameAs": [ "https://x.com/ewolffmann" ] } ], "publisher": "https://money.com/#organization", "datePublished": "2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z", "description": "The wizard who bought the domain name for the campaign as an \"investment\" expects to rake in up to six figures.", "abstract": "The wizard who bought the domain name for the campaign as an \"investment\" expects to rake in up to six figures.", "@id": "https://money.com/trump-pence-domain-name-squatter/", "inLanguage": "en-US", "dateModified": "2016-07-18T20:04:31.000Z", "wordCount": 294, "keywords": [ "2016 Campaign", "2016 Election", "Donald Trump 2016", "Mike Pence" ], "about": [ { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Political economy", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_economy" ] }, { "@type": "Thing", "name": "Politics", "sameAs": [ "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics" ] } ] } ] } ```