The full list of donors to President Donald Trump’s £240 million White House ballroom project has been published, revealing contributions from major technology companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, HP and Microsoft. Other notable donors include cryptocurrency firms Coinbase and Ripple, the Winklevoss Twins, Comcast, Lockheed Martin, Palantir Technologies, T-Mobile, Union Pacific Railroad, oil magnate Harold Hamm, the family of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and members of the Glazer family, owners of Manchester United and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Trump held a gala dinner for sponsors in the East Room last week, an event criticised for its opulence amid the ongoing government shutdown that has left federal workers unpaid. At the dinner, the president remarked: “For 150 years-plus they’ve wanted to have a ballroom and it never happened because they’ve never had a real estate person.”
Demolition work on the East Wing began Monday, prompting a series of memes, including one of Trump riding a golden wrecking ball. CBS reporter Weijia Jiang asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the president could tear down any building without oversight, including the Jefferson Memorial. Leavitt responded that many past presidents have left their mark on the White House complex, and urged the public to “trust the process.”
Trump reportedly regards the luxury development project as “relaxing” and sees the 90,000 square foot ballroom as a key part of his legacy, alongside other renovations such as the revamp of Jackie Kennedy’s Rose Garden into a tiled patio reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago estate. The president had previously pitched a larger ballroom to the Obama administration a decade ago, offering to fund it himself, but the proposal was declined.
George W. Bush-era White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter described the project as “an ethics nightmare,” telling the BBC: “It’s using access to the White House to raise money. I don’t like it. These corporations all want something from the government.”
