The cost of Donald Trump’s garish ballroom that’s replacing the East Wing of the White House keeps increasing, from $200 million to $300 million and now $350 million in a matter of days. That’s because the cost of construction isn’t nearly as important as having an inventory of donations available for corporate America to pony up. These contributions—or if you prefer, bribes—work in two directions. One, they represent cash that companies can give to secure favors from the government. Two, they serve as a disciplining function from Trump: People giving to his ballroom can’t easily speak out against his abuses of power. It’s no real surprise that the formal editorial page of The Washington Post offered a limp defense of the ballroom, when the company founded by the Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the donors.
The White House has said it would allow ballroom donors to remain anonymous, but they’re the ones who put out all the names of the donors. The double game of bribery and disciplining only works if the names are public, and it certainly wouldn’t do for Trump to pay for his own ballroom out of a $230 million extortion from the Justice Department; that wouldn’t leave any room to demand tribute from the corporate sector.
The result is among the most corrupt displays in American history, with a president agreeing to do corporations’ bidding in exchange for financing a personal shrine and staying aligned for the duration of his presidency. We’ve seen other instances of personal self-aggrandizement and favor-trading, from pardoning convicted felons who partner with his crypto company to handing out contracts to businesses linked to his family to letting personal friends and patrons fund the Defense Department. (That’s all just in the last week!) But the ballroom is literally being built on a foundation of corruption, as a monument to it, on the very grounds of the White House.
Which raises the question: What do all these companies in on the ground floor, so to speak, really want? Most of the companies that officially donated to the Trump ballroom have been in the Prospect’s crosshairs for some time, and in going back through our archives we can divine why they’re debasing themselves to play this corrupt game. Here’s a rundown:
Silicon Valley Oligarchs
The first thing that jumps off the page is that the nation’s five largest tech companies—Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft—are all on the donor list. Google’s money comes from a settlement with Trump for taking him off YouTube after January 6th.
Even before this, Trump had been the tech industry’s personal lobbyist abroad, shaking down foreign nations to drop their taxes and regulations on U.S. tech firms in trade deals. Trump’s attorney general was an Amazon lobbyist. And he exempted Apple from tariffs after getting a ridiculous statue from CEO Tim Cook. So why are these firms giving cash to someone who already is serving them well?
That’s simple: ongoing maintenance.
Google has been found liable for being a monopoly on multiple occasions in Justice Department cases; there’s an imminent ruling on its advertising technology business after Obama-appointed judge Amit Mehta delivered a light remedy on Google’s search monopoly. Meta recently wrapped up a trial in a monopolization case against the Federal Trade Commission, and a ruling is expected shortly; Apple and Amazon face monopolization lawsuits against the government as well, and Apple has lost private antitrust litigation. All of these cases could be withdrawn or settled by the president.
In addition, all of these companies are spending fantastic sums in the global AI race. They need a government that will weaken state regulations and allow data centers to be built nationwide, as well as being willing to provide a backstop if the AI stock bubble collapses. (NextEra Energy, which is also a donor, is resurrecting an Iowa nuclear facility to power a Google data center; it will help to have the government in its corner.)
There’s evidence that Meta’s appeasement of the Chinese government actually facilitated that country’s AI developments; Apple is exposed on aiding Chinese tech’s superpower status as well. Buying Trump’s loyalty helps him overlook these betrayals.
Finally, Amazon is in the midst of trying to get the National Labor Relations Board declared unconstitutional, and wants to keep the Trump administration out of that fight.
Crypto Return on Investment
Like with Big Tech, the crypto industry has already made its purchase of the inner sanctums of the government. Trump is literally a crypto mogul; his administration is allowing crypto in 401(k) plans and potentially as collateral for mortgages; nearly all of the overlapping civil and criminal investigations against crypto companies have been withdrawn; and Congress passed a stablecoin law that eases up on regulation and could facilitate private currencies. It is party time in the crypto world.
Among the ballroom donors are Coinbase, Ripple, and Tether. Among individual donors are the Winklevoss twins, who own the crypto exchange Gemini, and Charles Cascarilla, CEO and co-founder of blockchain infrastructure firm Paxos. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is also a donor; he made his fortune running Cantor Fitzgerald, which was the banker for Tether.
Again, this is about ongoing maintenance and future results. Coinbase and Ripple have been among the largest crypto spenders in politics since the 2024 elections. The Winklevoss twins recently interceded to get Trump to change his choice to run the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, which the industry wants to become the lead digital assets regulator. But they need market structure legislation to make that happen, and Congress is in turmoil. Spending on the ballroom could be a way to go back to Trump and get him to pressure his Republican underlings to pass what the industry wants. Crypto titans also want the barely-alive Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to make it easier for customers to move their money out of banks and to their apps; that requires more quid pro quo relationships with D.C. power brokers.
Antitrust Cover-Up
It may have been jarring to see printer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard on the list. It’s a pretty Democratic firm in terms of campaign spending. But one of its business lines, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, has been in the news lately. HPE successfully got a merger approved with Juniper Networks that the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division initially challenged. It turned out that HPE paid MAGA lobbyists to get top DOJ officials to overrule the Antitrust Division, in what ousted Antitrust Division officials later described as rank pay-to-play corruption. There’s likely to be a forthcoming judicial proceeding about the merger, which could reveal some very unseemly things about HPE. They’re likely paying Trump to try to keep a lid on this scandal.
In addition, HPE’s dominance in enterprise networks could see them soar in the data center building boom, so keeping Trump happy makes sense there as well.
Separately, Blackstone, the private equity firm run by ballroom donor Stephen Schwarzman, just announced an $18.3 billion deal alongside TPG to take mammogram rollup Hologic private, which presumably Schwarzman wants the government to approve.
Transcontinental Railroad
One decidedly old-school donor on the list was Union Pacific. But in July, the company announced a historic $85 billion proposed merger with Norfolk Southern, which would for the first time in American history put one company in control of a railroad that can travel coast-to-coast. Even Jay Gould couldn’t get a single transcontinental railroad done during the first Gilded Age. But Union Pacific’s dream would touch 43 states, and end the gentlemen’s agreement whereby two Eastern and two Western railroads split up the country.
That merger needs to be approved … by the Trump administration’s Surface Transportation Board. So you get the picture here. Throwing down millions of dollars for a ballroom is a small price to pay for monopolizing freight rail commerce.
The National-Security Blob
One old-school member of the military-industrial complex showed up on the list, as did one new-school member. Lockheed Martin is in line for at least some of the hundreds of billions of dollars in new contracts available after Congress topped up military spending in the Big Beautiful Bill. Palantir thinks it can get a substantial share of that money as part of the defense tech push, as well as funding for surveillance operations at the border. Meanwhile, national-security contractor Booz Allen Hamilton gave to the ballroom, an indicator of the continuing drift of rule by contractor in the Trump era.
Sugar Barons
Sharp-eyed Prospect readers were sure to notice the presence of José and Emilia Fanjul on the list. The Fanjul dynasty, as we reported last month, has been a dominant fixture in American life since the 19th century, cleaning up in the sugar industry with favorable rules and tariff structures and the like. When Trump secured a deal with Coca-Cola to produce their soft drink with cane sugar, he was enriching the Fanjuls. And keeping sugar flowing from their plantation in the Dominican Republic that employs something approaching forced labor, which Trump secured with a quiet regulatory change this year, is a top priority.
Miscellaneous
There are a few individual donors who are closely associated with the companies they run. Stephen Schwarzman and Blackstone have tons of business before the federal government, from housing to AI, and Pam Bondi was also that company’s lobbyist. The Adelson family has essentially dictated Trumpian policy in the Middle East. Fracking mogul Harold Hamm is a close associate of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and helped map out the administration’s energy policy. A little extra for the ballroom helps keep that on the right path.
It was interesting to see cigarette manufacturers Altria and R.J. Reynolds International on the list. Cigarette companies’ stocks did fall when Trump’s Food and Drug Administration kept e-cigarettes on shelves in July. Altria once had a significant investment in Juul, the top e-cigarette maker, but divested in 2023. So maybe this is just a pitch for Big Sin to get back in the game with the administration.
Less puzzling is the role of Caterpillar, the farm machinery manufacturer. Trouble in the agricultural sector is a direct threat to Caterpillar’s bottom line; a little investment in Trumpian relations to get better outcomes than a farm bailout (whereby farmers are paid not to produce, and therefore not use Caterpillar equipment) is in order. Caterpillar also has a big plant in Mexico that has been alleged to have committed significant labor violations; maybe this is buying off Trump to look the other way at an America Last company.
Finally, your guess is as good as mine as to why Hard Rock International appears here. Maybe Trump has an old friend at Hard Rock from his casino days; or maybe Hard Rock wants the concession contract, or a few slot machines in the gilt-edged foyer. But there’s one more option; Hard Rock is among the firms trying to win a New York City license to install a casino in one of the five boroughs. Trump doesn’t have much clout in New York, but I guess every bit of leverage helps, should Trump decide to trade funding for a rail tunnel for a casino license for his favorite pals.
Logan Chapman contributed reporting.