All The Donors Financing Trump’s Ballroom As He Demolishes The White House

The White House on Thursday released a list of all the private donors who have agreed to pay for the construction of President Donald Trump’s 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom ― and the entire demolition of the East Wing, which is now complete.HuffPost is committed to fearlessly covering the Trump administration. Click here to support our mission and become a member today.Donors on the list include CEOs, real estate moguls, lots of corporations, and otherwise just really rich people. Defence contractors like Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen Hamilton are kicking in money for the president’s project, as are telecommunications companies like Comcast, and tobacco industry companies like Reynolds American. Tech companies like Amazon and Apple are in the mix, along with crypto companies.Here’s the full list, provided by a White House official:Altria Group, Inc.Amazon AppleBooz Allen HamiltonCaterpillar, Inc.CoinbaseComcast CorporationPepe and Emilia FanjulHard Rock InternationalGoogleHP Inc.Lockheed MartinMeta PlatformsMicron TechnologyMicrosoftNextEra Energy, Inc.Palantir Technologies Inc.RippleReynolds AmericanT-MobileTether AmericaUnion Pacific RailroadAdelson Family FoundationStefan E. BrodieBetty Wold Johnson FoundationCharles and Marissa CascarillaEdward and Shari GlazerHarold HammBenjamin Leon Jr.The Lutnick FamilyThe Laura & Isaac Perlmutter FoundationStephen A. SchwarzmanKonstantin SokolovKelly Loeffler and Jeff SprecherPaolo TiramaniCameron WinklevossTyler WinklevossTrump has boasted about his ballroom being funded entirely by private donors and his own money, not public dollars. But the White House hasn’t shared how much money each of these companies and people have pledged to give him – or what they’re expecting in return.Some donors were reportedly given the option of having their names permanently etched in the White House ballroom’s brick or stone.The only individual donation that’s been made public is tied to Google’s parent company, Alphabet, which is contributing $22 million to Trump’s ballroom. That money is coming from a recent legal settlement the company reached with Trump after he was banned from YouTube, owned by Alphabet, after he incited the January 6, 2021, insurrection.Trump has demolished the entire East Wing of the White House to make way for his 90,000-square-foot, $300 million ballroom.HuffPost reached out to all of the companies on the list, and as many of the individuals as we were able to track down, with the same two questions: How much are they donating to Trump’s ballroom, and if they have any comment about Trump destroying the East Wing ― and American history in the process ― to make way for his project.Most didn’t respond immediately to requests for comment, but a few did.“I can confirm that Microsoft contributed to the ballroom, as has been publicly reported,” company spokesperson Kaitlin Haskins said in an email. “That’s all I have at the moment, but if anything changes, I will circle back.”T-Mobile confirmed it gave money to the Trust for the National Mall, the nonprofit overseeing the donations to fund Trump’s ballroom. But beyond that, a spokesperson said the company didn’t have any say on how those dollars were spent.“Ahead of America’s 250th Anniversary, T-Mobile donated to the Trust for the National Mall, which partners with the National Park Service to restore and enrich the historic landmarks that define our nation’s capital, such as the White House ballroom,” the T-Mobile spokesperson said in an emailed statement.“T-Mobile has no role in the use of those funds or decisions related to the construction of the ballroom,” they said. They did not share how much money T-Mobile donated.A Betty Wold Johnson Foundation employee who returned a phone call to HuffPost said she was “not authorised to discuss the donation.”The woman, whose name we didn’t catch, seemed like she wished maybe she hadn’t called us back.“I have a lot of activity happening today and a lot of phone calls to return,” she said. “I wasn’t really aware of the nature of this call.”Asked if the foundation’s president, former US Ambassador Woody Johnson, was aware that the East Wing of the White House had been completely demolished on Thursday to make way for Trump’s ballroom, the woman said he doesn’t “generally discuss his philanthropy.”Johnson, whom Trump tapped to be his ambassador to the United Kingdom in his first term, is also the owner of the New York Jets.“I don’t know how familiar he is with the nature of the details of the construction,” she said before we hung up.The rubble that was once the East Wing of the White House, pictured on Wednesday.White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Thursday that Trump is committed to being transparent about donations to his ballroom. She courted new donors, too.“Perhaps there will be more people who want to generously contribute to this project,” Leavitt said in her daily press briefing. Outside the building, a single protester was loudly chanting about Trump breaking laws by razing part of the White House.“This demolition is illegal,” shouted Suzanne Jordan, a Virginia resident holding a cardboard sign that read, GENEVA. “This demolition is a federal crime.”She told HuffPost she was a student at George Washington University on September 11 and had to evacuate the school when the Pentagon was hit by a plane. The images of part of the Pentagon being in rubble after the attack, with rescue workers spraying hoses on the wreckage, stayed with her, she said, and now she’s seeing similar images with Trump’s destruction of the White House.“The look, feel, of the hose on a pile, I feel that as well. Like, triggering in the most extreme,” said Jordan. “I was thinking of the New Testament today. Like Jesus has said, ‘Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.’”

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