Some of America’s largest corporations are backing Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom.
With no warning, the president razed the White House’s East Wing this week to make way for his lavish project, destroying the portion of the building that has traditionally been the starting point for White House tours and served as the dedicated space for the first lady’s offices.
Speaking with reporters in the Oval Office Wednesday, Trump said the 90,000 square foot ballroom would be nearly twice the size of the White House, and quietly added $100 million on top of the project’s previously announced price tag. He also swore that the government would not bear the cost of the gathering space, noting that it would be paid “100 percent by me and some friends of mine.”
Those “friends” include the likes of Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and Meta, according to a list released by the Trump administration of people and companies expected to attend a dinner about the construction project. Other stand-out names include the defense titan Palantir, cell service provider T-Mobile, and the names of some of the country’s wealthiest families.
Read the full list below.
- Altria Group, Inc.
- Amazon
- Apple
- Booz Allen Hamilton
- Caterpillar, Inc.
- Coinbase
- Comcast Corporation
- J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul
- Hard Rock International
- HP Inc.
- Lockheed Martin
- Meta Platforms
- Micron Technology
- Microsoft
- NextEra Energy, Inc.
- Palantir Technologies Inc.
- Ripple
- Reynolds American
- T-Mobile
- Tether America
- Union Pacific Railroad
- Adelson Family Foundation
- Stefan E. Brodie
- Betty Wold Johnson Foundation
- Charles and Marissa Cascarilla
- Edward and Shari Glazer
- Harold 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
Donations are being managed by the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit that previously oversaw the restoration of the Washington Monument in the wake of the 2011 earthquake. Exactly how Trump will be aggregating the funds, however, is not totally clear. Some of the expected money will come by way of previous arrangements in Trump’s settled lawsuits. Google’s parent company Alphabet, for instance, agreed to contribute $22 million to the ballroom’s construction as recompense for banning Trump from YouTube in the fallout of the January 6 Capitol riot.
At least one unlisted entity is already roped into the ballroom development plan, according to Trump: the U.S. military.
“We’re also working with the military on it because they want to make sure everything is perfect,” Trump said. “And the military is very much involved in this. They want to make sure everything is absolutely beautiful.”
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