Which notable businesspeople attended Wharton in the 1960s alongside Donald Trump?

1. The question being asked: classmates or schoolwide alumni?

The user’s query targets businesspeople who “attended Wharton in the 1960s alongside Donald Trump,” which calls for contemporaries in time and place rather than any famous Wharton alumni across decades; reporting shows many outlets attempted that narrower task and largely failed to produce well‑known business figures from Trump’s actual classmates ^{[1] [2]}.

2. What reporters actually found about the Class of 1968

Investigations by The Daily Pennsylvanian and other outlets reached dozens or hundreds of members of Trump’s purported Class of 1968 and repeatedly found that most alumni did not recall him or considered him a peripheral presence—out of hundreds contacted only a small number remembered sharing classes or campus life with him ^{[1] [2]}. Those inquiries produced named classmates such as Kenneth Kadish, Louis (Lou) Calomaris, Ted Sachs and Donald Morrison, but these figures are cited as classmates with recollections rather than as later widely recognized business celebrities ^{[1] [2] [6] [7]}.

3. Eyewitness color from classmates — not celebrity résumés

Classmates who did remember Trump described him as a loner who spent weekends in New York and did not stand out academically, and one anecdote has him proclaiming a destiny as “king of New York real estate,” which drew eye rolls rather than acclaim ^{[2] [8]}. The reportage emphasizes personal recollection and campus footprint, not a list of future titans who sat beside him in lectures ^{[8] [2]}.

4. Notable Wharton alumni exist — but not necessarily Trump’s classmates

Wharton indisputably produced many high‑profile business figures across eras; sources list names such as Ronald Perelman and include Wharton among the schools that count Warren Buffett and Elon Musk among alumni in broader lists, but those sources do not establish that these individuals were Trump’s contemporaries in the 1960s ^{[3] [4] [5]}. Reporting focused on Trump’s class does not connect these household names to his specific cohort, and at least one widely circulated Wharton‑alumni list mixes alumni from different decades without tying them to Trump’s 1968 class ^{[3] [5]}.

5. Why sources come up short — limits and alternative viewpoints

Multiple articles candidly describe the limits of university privacy rules and the patchy nature of memory among alumni; Penn will not release detailed academic records beyond degree and graduation date, and alumni recollections are fragmented, which constrains definitive identification of prominent 1960s classmates ^{[8] [2]}. An alternative interpretation offered by some alumni is that Trump’s transfer status and weekend absences explain why he left few impressions on a class that otherwise produced businesspeople of varying prominence—yet the reporting still does not surface any major business celebrity who was unmistakably in his cohort ^{[1] [8]}.

6. Bottom line

The contemporaneous reporting and alumni searches assembled by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Philly Magazine and AP conclude that there are no clearly documented, notable businesspeople who attended Wharton in the 1960s and are commonly described as Trump’s classmates; those outlets name several classmates who remember him or recall anecdotes, but they stop short of identifying household‑name business leaders from that shared class ^{[1] [2] [9]}. Sources that catalog famous Wharton alumni do confirm the school’s long record of producing business titans, but they do not substantiate that such titans were in Trump’s 1960s classroom ^{[3] [5]}.