President Trump hosted dozens of wealthy spenders for a dinner on Wednesday in exchange for what he called the “tremendous amounts of money” they agreed to donate to construct a $200 million ballroom addition to the White House, a project that has sparked concerns from ethics watchdogs.
“We have a lot of legends in the room tonight, and that’s why we’re here to celebrate you, because you gave,” Mr. Trump said in the East Room. “They wanted to have a ballroom, and it never happened because they didn’t have a real estate person.”
More than three dozen corporate executives and wealthy businesspeople attended the dinner, where Mr. Trump expressed gratitude for their opening their checkbooks for his long-desired state ballroom. Representatives from companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft and Lockheed Martin were in attendance.
So were wealthy supporters of Mr. Trump, like Harold G. Hamm, the billionaire oil and gas executive who bankrolled Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign and stands to benefit from his energy policies. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, who run the crypto exchange Gemini and have contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to a pro-Trump PAC called MAGA Inc., were also there.
The building of a 90,0000-square-foot ballroom has raised a number of questions about potential conflicts of interests. White House officials have said Mr. Trump and other donors would pay for the renovations but have provided few specific details.
Richard W. Painter, who served as the chief ethics lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office under President George W. Bush, said in an interview that Mr. Trump’s dinner for the corporate executives “shows what the ballroom is really all about: pay to play.”
“Getting an invitation to the White House to a dinner because they’re contributing to the construction of this project,” Mr. Painter said. “This is payment for access, not just to the grounds of the White House but access to the president of the United States.”
Mr. Trump and his aides have maintained that the additional space to host foreign dignitaries and other guests of the White House is urgently needed. In the past, the White House has often hosted large crowds under a tent on the South Lawn.
“The American presidents need to be able to showcase our country,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday night.
In a meandering speech that shifted from details of the ballroom — bulletproof windows and a capacity of 999 people, among them — to a description of his foreign policy agenda, Mr. Trump told the audience that he expected the project to be completed under budget. He also suggested that some attendees had offered to pay more than $20 million for the ballroom.
“So many of you have been really, really generous,” Mr. Trump said. “I mean, a couple of you, I was sitting here and saying, ‘Sir, would $25 million be appropriate?’ They said, ‘I’ll take it.’”
Mr. Trump also showed corporate executives models of a new arch that is planned for near Arlington National Cemetery.
Mr. Trump’s speech touched on a range of topics, including statues of Confederate generals and his strikes on vessels near the coast of Venezuela.
He pivoted to talk about his administration’s military strikes on boats in the Caribbean. The administration has said those boats were transporting drugs, but has provided few details about who was on the vessels at the time of the strikes and given relatively thin legal justifications for its campaign.
“In fact, nobody wants to go fishing anymore,” Mr. Trump said, prompting laughter. “No one wants to do anything near the water. They might have a beautiful boat and they might as well get rid of their boat because they’re very nervous.”
Mr. Trump also acknowledged the arc of his relationship with many of the people in the room. Toward the end of his speech, he noted that some of the business leaders there opposed him in the past but had rushed to support him as he amassed power.
“It’s amazing the way a victory can change the minds of some people,” Mr. Trump said.
This was the guest list, as provided by a White House official:
Altria Group
Amazon.com
Apple
Booz Allen Hamilton
Caterpillar
Coinbase Global
Comcast
Hard Rock International
HP
Lockheed Martin
Meta Platforms
Micron Technology
Microsoft
NextEra Energy
Palantir Technologies
Ripple
Reynolds American
T-Mobile US
Tether
Union Pacific Railroad
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
Adelson Family Foundation
Stefan E. Brodie
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
Edward and Shari Glazer
Harold G. Hamm
Benjamin Leon Jr.
The Lutnick Family
The Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Foundation
Stephen A. Schwarzman
Konstantin Sokolov
Kelly Loeffler and Jeff Sprecher
Paolo Tiramani
Cameron Winklevoss
Tyler Winklevoss
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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