By Staff Reporter | June 10, 2026 | UPDATED: 9:45 AM EDT

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida — In a move that is already generating fierce debate across social media, political circles, and the competitive $21 billion energy drink industry, Barron Trump — the youngest son of President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump — has officially launched his first consumer beverage brand, and America is paying close attention. The product is called Sollos, it’s a yerba mate-based energy drink with a tropical twist, and it’s retailing at a price that has left many consumers doing a double take.

A 12-pack of Sollos Yerba Mate in its debut Pineapple + Coconut flavor will set you back $39 — roughly $3.25 per can. For a 20-year-old college student stepping onto the national stage with his first major independent business venture, the launch has been anything but quiet.

The Drink Itself: What’s Inside the Can?

At its core, Sollos is a yerba mate energy drink — a category that has exploded in popularity across the United States over the past several years, riding the wave of health-conscious consumers looking for a “cleaner” caffeine fix than traditional synthetic energy drinks like Monster or Bang. Yerba mate, a caffeinated herbal beverage brewed from the dried leaves of the Ilex paraguariensis plant, has been consumed across South America — particularly in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil — for centuries. It carries deep cultural and, in many indigenous communities, spiritual significance.

Sollos’ debut offering — the Pineapple + Coconut flavor — comes in at 50 calories per can, contains 120 milligrams of naturally occurring caffeine, and carries 5 grams of added sugar. The company markets it as organic, clean, and functional, positioning it firmly in the premium wellness beverage category.

According to the brand’s website, it was conceived as something that could serve as “something refreshing after a surf session, energizing enough to carry you through a tennis set, and crafted with organic ingredients.” The company promises a product designed not as just another energy drink, but as a lifestyle companion — something that “actually complements life in the Sunshine State.”

In what the brand describes as a commitment to perfection over volume, Sollos is launching with just one single flavor. A company spokesperson explained the reasoning with unusual candor: “We didn’t set out to make a flavor lineup; we set out to make the perfect drink. Most brands launch with five flavors, hoping you’ll like one of them. We spent all of our time, energy, and resources obsessing over a single recipe until it was flawless.”

Whether or not consumers agree that the result justifies the philosophy — or the price — is, as of this writing, very much an open question.

Who Is Behind Sollos?

Barron Trump is listed as a director and co-founder of Sollos Yerba Mate Inc., a Florida-based company that was incorporated in Delaware in December 2025 and registered in Florida in January 2026. The business was also briefly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the name Soulstice Inc., before settling on the Sollos branding — a name drawn from “sol,” the Spanish word for sun, reflecting the company’s Florida roots and sun-drenched identity.

Barron is not the sole face of the venture. He co-founded the company alongside four friends — Spencer Bernstein, Rodolfo Castillo, Stephen Hall, and Valentino Gomez — all of whom grew up in South Florida and range in age from 19 to 23. They are described on the company’s website as “close friends who grew up living in South Florida.”

Spencer Bernstein, who attended Oxbridge Academy in Palm Beach alongside Barron, is a Villanova University student who publicly announced on LinkedIn that he was postponing his final semester to focus on the business. Stephen Hall, associated with the University of Notre Dame, made a similar announcement. The founders are clearly all-in.

The company operates out of a 4,500-square-foot location in Palm Beach, Florida — roughly a mile from the Trump family’s famous Mar-a-Lago estate. In terms of financial backing, Sollos raised $1 million through a private placement, as documented in SEC filings dated January 23, 2026.

Barron Trump himself is currently a sophomore at New York University’s Stern School of Business, studying at the institution’s Washington, D.C. campus. The beverage launch represents his second known major business venture: he is also a co-founder of World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency enterprise, alongside his father, President Donald Trump, and his older brothers, Donald Jr. and Eric.

His net worth, according to a Forbes estimate from late 2025, stands at approximately $150 million — a fact not lost on critics who have questioned the necessity of yet another Trump family commercial venture.

The Launch: Cabanas, Coconuts, and a West Palm Beach Party

The official product launch took place in May 2026, punctuated by what CNN described as a “splashy West Palm Beach party” befitting a brand that wants to live and breathe the Florida lifestyle. The launch event set the tone for the kind of premium, sun-soaked aesthetic the brand is clearly aspiring toward.

The brand’s online presence — particularly its Instagram and LinkedIn pages — teased the launch weeks in advance. An early LinkedIn post featured footage of light blue Sollos cans gliding along a surfboard on the water, aesthetically crisp and instantly shareable. The imagery spoke directly to the brand’s target demographic: affluent young Floridians and health-conscious outdoor enthusiasts. The reaction to that post was immediate and electric — though not entirely for the reasons the founders might have hoped.

Perhaps most notably, tech billionaire and presidential ally Elon Musk appeared in the comments section of Sollos’ Instagram page, leaving a one-word endorsement: “beautiful.” In the social media economy, that single comment from one of the most followed and controversial figures on earth was worth more than any conventional advertising spend. Whether it drove sales is another matter — but it certainly drove attention.

The brand launched on its own website and simultaneously made the product available on Amazon and in convenience stores, providing immediate accessibility across multiple sales channels. For a brand less than six months old, the distribution footprint at launch was notably ambitious.

The Price Tag: Eye-Watering or Simply Premium?

Let’s address the number that has dominated the conversation since Sollos first went on sale: $39 for a 12-pack, or approximately $3.25 per can.

For consumers accustomed to grabbing a Red Bull from a gas station cooler for $2 or cracking open a standard energy drink from a warehouse store for less than $1 a can, the Sollos price point is undeniably jarring. On Amazon, for context, a 12-pack of Red Bull Summer Edition flavors runs roughly $61.28 for 24 cans — meaning on a per-unit basis, the comparison is less dramatic than the sticker shock might initially suggest. Red Bull works out to around $2.55 per 12-ounce can; Sollos at $3.25 is notably more expensive, though not entirely divorced from the premium beverage market.

But this comparison has done little to quiet critics. On X (formerly Twitter), one user wrote bluntly: “$39 for a 12-pack? A fool and his money are soon parted.” The sentiment was widely shared and retweeted, crystallizing a broader unease about the premium pricing during a period of significant economic strain for many American households — a strain, critics are quick to note, that has been exacerbated by the tariff policies of the very administration that Barron’s father leads.

Writing in The Daily Beast, one commentator was pointed in their assessment: “Barron Trump is being labeled an out-of-touch grifter online, two weeks after he launched his Palm Beach-based $40 energy drink while Americans struggle with rising prices due to his father’s economic policies.”

The juxtaposition is politically potent. The Trump administration’s tariff regime has driven up the cost of everyday goods for millions of American families. Against that backdrop, the president’s youngest son is launching a premium beverage at the top end of the market, complete with an $80 insulated beach bag and a $95 hoodie in the Sollos merchandise collection.

The merchandise line — which also includes $40 shorts and a $30 baseball cap — has itself drawn derision. “The grift never stops with these people,” one social media user posted, a sentiment that accumulated thousands of likes within hours.

The Cultural Appropriation Debate

If the price tag sparked one wave of controversy, the very nature of the product — yerba mate, a beverage with centuries of indigenous and cultural significance across South America — ignited another.

Before Sollos had even launched, the brand’s Instagram page was flooded with criticism accusing the company of cultural appropriation: the commercialization of a drink that carries profound historical, social, and in many communities, spiritual meaning across Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Brazil, filtered through the lens of an elite American family with a complicated relationship with Latino communities.

“Nice cultural appropriation… They don’t want Latinos in the U.S. but they want their products. Buy yerba from Latin American countries and do this beverage the natural way!” wrote one user in a comment that went viral ahead of the launch.

The criticism carries a particular edge given the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement policies, which have disproportionately affected Latino communities across the United States. The optics of the president’s son launching a business built on a South American cultural staple — while his father’s administration conducts mass deportations — has not been lost on critics.

“The Trump family is big on branding, always selling some sort of product with their name or likeness attached to it,” one observer wrote, drawing a direct line between Sollos, World Liberty Financial, the Trump NFTs, the Trump-branded Bible, and the broader pattern of the family’s commercial activities during the presidency.

Sollos’ branding leans entirely into Florida’s outdoor culture and sunshine imagery, with its website origin story beginning: “It all started in a cabana, with a simple goal: create a beverage that actually complements life in the Sunshine State.” The brand makes no explicit acknowledgment of yerba mate’s indigenous South American origins — a positioning choice that critics argue has amplified rather than defused the cultural tension.

Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of the Democracy Defenders Fund, took a broader view of the Trump family’s business activities, warning that the pattern “opens yet another potential avenue of seeking to influence the president through his family’s assorted business schemes.” It is a concern that has dogged the Trump administration since its earliest days — the question of where the president’s family’s commercial interests end and the public interest begins.

Early Reviews: Surprisingly Positive

Amid all the political noise, there is the beverage itself — and to the evident surprise of at least some early reviewers, it is drawing genuinely positive notices.

A reviewer from Slate, Heather Schwedel, went in skeptical and came out, if not a convert, then at least a reluctant admirer. “I kept drinking,” she wrote, “and unfortunately, Sollos continued to grow on me.” The word “unfortunately” is doing considerable work in that sentence, but the bottom line is clear: the product, whatever one’s views on the brand and the family behind it, is apparently good.

A reviewer writing in The Times of London offered a broadly favorable assessment, noting what they described as a “race car”-like caffeine kick — 120 milligrams of naturally occurring caffeine delivering a noticeably clean and sustained energy boost rather than the sharp crash associated with synthetically caffeinated drinks — and comparing the overall mouthfeel to a “non-alcoholic piña colada.” For a debut product from a first-time beverage entrepreneur, that is a respectable showing.

On social media, reaction was split but not uniformly hostile. One X user posted: “Barron Trump is in business, launching an energy drink called Sollos, which puts a new spin on the traditional South American herbal elixir yerba mate. Nice packaging.” The packaging, it should be said, is a genuine strength: the light blue cans are clean, minimal, and premium-looking in a way that sits comfortably alongside established brands in the upscale wellness drink space.

The Broader Business Context: Barron’s Growing Empire

Sollos does not exist in a vacuum. It is part of an emerging picture of Barron Trump as an entrepreneur in his own right — one who, despite his youth and relative inexperience, is moving quickly to establish a commercial identity distinct from, if inevitably linked to, the Trump family brand.

His involvement in World Liberty Financial, the Trump family’s cryptocurrency venture, established him early as a participant in the family’s broader financial ecosystem. The cryptocurrency project has itself attracted controversy, with critics arguing it represents yet another avenue through which the Trump family is capitalizing on the presidential brand.

With Sollos, however, there is at least the argument that Barron is building something genuinely new — a consumer product with a real supply chain, real manufacturing, real co-founders who have put their own careers on hold, and real product reviews. It is, whatever one’s political views, a more conventional entrepreneurial venture than a crypto token or a branded Bible.

The company’s SEC registration, its $1 million raise from private investors, its Delaware incorporation, its 4,500-square-foot Palm Beach headquarters, its Amazon storefront, its convenience store distribution network — these are the bones of a real business, not a mere celebrity licensing exercise.

Whether that business can survive without the Trump name is a question that will take years to answer. Whether the Trump name is helping or hurting in the current environment is a question that is being answered in real time, with every viral tweet and every sarcastic Instagram comment.

The Industry Landscape: David vs. Goliaths

The energy drink market Barron Trump is entering is one of the most fiercely competitive consumer product categories in the world. Red Bull and Monster Beverage — the two dominant players — command a combined market share that dwarfs virtually all competitors. In recent years, however, the premium and “functional” beverage segment has been the fastest-growing part of the category, driven by health-conscious millennials and Gen Z consumers who are willing to pay more for products that align with their values: organic ingredients, natural caffeine, no artificial additives.

Brands like Guayakí Yerba Mate have blazed a trail in this specific niche, building substantial consumer bases by leaning into the authenticity and cultural richness of yerba mate’s South American origins — precisely the kind of positioning that critics argue Sollos is conspicuously avoiding.

The competitive benchmark is real. Guayakí’s canned beverages typically retail at $2.50 to $3.50 per can, putting Sollos’ $3.25 per-can price point within the competitive range for the premium tier of the yerba mate category. This context is important: while the $39 12-pack price generates reflexive sticker shock, it is not, in the context of the premium wellness beverage market, genuinely outrageous. It is, however, a choice that requires the brand to justify its premium positioning with every aspect of the product — taste, ingredients, branding, and consumer experience.

That justification is, at this early stage, a work in progress.

Political Fallout: A Family Brand in an Inflationary Age

No story involving a Trump family business venture exists outside the political context, and Sollos is no exception. The launch has become a flashpoint for broader conversations about economic inequality, the politics of the current administration, and the question of whether American consumers — many of whom are facing real financial hardship — will spend nearly $40 on a 12-pack of energy drinks from a family they associate with the tariff-driven inflation squeezing their grocery bills.

Senator and vocal Trump critic figures and commentators on the left have circulated the Sollos launch as an example of what they characterize as the administration’s indifference to working-class economic concerns. The argument, stripped to its essence: while ordinary Americans pay more for food, energy, and consumer goods as a result of Trump administration trade policies, the president’s son is launching a $40-a-case artisanal energy drink and selling $95 hoodies.

It is, admittedly, a powerful rhetorical contrast.

Supporters of the Trump family, for their part, have pushed back on what they characterize as politically motivated bad faith. Why, they ask, should a 20-year-old be criticized for starting a business? Is the left not perpetually arguing for young entrepreneurship? Is there not something slightly absurd about attacking the quality of a beverage you have never tasted?

The answer, as with so much in American political life right now, depends entirely on where you stand before the argument begins.

What’s Next for Sollos?

Despite the noise, the brand appears to be moving forward with confidence. The founders have been explicit that Sollos is a long-term project, not a quick cash grab — a positioning that the decision to launch with just one perfectly developed flavor, rather than a scatter-shot lineup, is designed to reinforce.

The company’s spokesperson has indicated that future flavors are on the horizon, to be developed with the same obsessive single-recipe focus that produced the debut Pineapple + Coconut. Whether the brand expands its retail footprint beyond convenience stores and Amazon, whether it pursues major grocery chain distribution, and whether it can sustain consumer interest beyond the initial media frenzy surrounding its famous co-founder — all of these are open questions.

What is certain is that Barron Trump has done something relatively few children of American presidents have done: he has entered the marketplace as an entrepreneur, under his real name, with a real product, subject to real consumer judgment. The experiment is underway.

The cans are on the shelves. The price is $3.25 apiece. The caffeine is real, the coconut is tropical, and the conversation — political, cultural, and commercial — has only just begun.

KEY FACTS AT A GLANCE

This story is developing. Follow for updates on Sollos’ national retail expansion and Barron Trump’s continued business activities.

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