Giants of Tech and Industry Dominate List of Donors to Trump’s $300 Million Ballroom

Tech titans, lobbyists and cryptocurrency entrepreneurs sprinkle a newly published list of donors to President Trump’s $300 million ballroom, which is set to rise on the ruins of what had been the executive mansion’s East Wing.Plans to demolish the East Wing, which has housed offices for the first lady and her staff since its construction in the 1940s, became known only this week, prompting cries of alarm from some historians and preservationists. One former first lady, Hillary Clinton, wrote on X that Mr. Trump is “destroying” a home that belongs to the American people. The White House has undergone numerous additions and renovations since construction first began in 1792, but Mr. Trump’s effort appears to be the most ambitious in decades. The president said that in abandoning plans to preserve the East Wing while constructing his ballroom, he was acting on the advice of architects.The list of donors to pay for the new 90,000-square foot space – first published Thursday by The Hill – includes some of the country’s best-known tech companies, including Amazon, Meta, Google, and Apple.All four contributed to Mr. Trump’s inaugural fund earlier this year, and the chief executives of the firms have had fairly warm relationships with the administration. Apple’s chief executive, Tim Cook, went so far as to gift Mr. Trump a golden award marking the company’s new investments in America. Construction vehicle manufacturer Caterpillar and technology company Booz Allen Hamilton are also listed as donors. Comcast has donated an undisclosed amount of money, as well. Several individuals and companies working in the cryptocurrency space are supporting the president’s renovations. The crypto exchange Coinbase, which has been heavily involved in lobbying efforts at the White House and in Congress to advance the industry’s interests, has donated. The Winklevoss twins, Tyler and Cameron, who are now professional crypto investors, have also donated.Since launching his own cryptocurrency earlier this year, the president has reportedly made billions of dollars. His sons are now leading their own crypto firm, backed by many foreign investors. Other well-known corporations like HP Inc., Lockheed Martin, Micron Technology, Microsoft, Union Pacific Railroad, and Reynolds American are chipping in, too. Some of Mr. Trump’s best-known campaign supporters and administration appointees have donated to the ballroom construction, according to the White House. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and members of his family have donated. So too have the Small Business Administration chief, Kelly Loeffler, and her husband Jeffrey Sprecher, who serves as chairman of the New York Stock Exchange. Another donor is the technology and artificial intelligence firm Palantir, which was founded by Mr. Trump’s longtime donor and friend Peter Thiel, who is also close with Vice President JD Vance. Casino magnate Miriam Adelson is on the list. “I think it will be one of the great ballrooms anywhere in the world,” Mr. Trump said in the Oval Office Wednesday. “It’s about $300 million. It’s set to do many, many things, including meetings of foreign leaders, including the honoring of foreign leaders.”He has complained that the area in the White House typically used for state dinners and large meetings with foreign heads of state – the East Room – is too small for large gatherings. Mr. Trump said Wednesday that for dinners, he can host only about 79 people, which he deems inadequate. According to a White House estimate from July, the new ballroom could host as many as 650 people for dinner. Mr. Trump has made other changes to the White House in recent months. He has added flag poles on the North and South Lawns, adorned the Oval Office with gold decorations, and added a gallery of presidential portraits which includes a photo of an autopen in place of President Biden, as a tongue-in-cheek joke about the former president’s use of the device. On Thursday, the White House updated the “major events” tab on its official website to include renovations and other construction projects, as well as major events for past presidents. The website now boasts photos of President Clinton with Monica Lewinsky under a “Clinton Scandal” tab, a photo of President Obama in Kenyan garb, and a photo of Hunter Biden naked in a bathtub smoking a cigarette.

Giants of Tech and Industry Dominate List of Donors to Trump’s $300 Million Ballroom

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