The huge companies funding $300 million White House party room should have you concerned

The massive list of donors funding Donald Trump’s $300 million White House ballroom includes giants like Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta. This kind of thing should absolutely raise some eyebrows about who’s getting the President’s ear.

We’re not just talking about wealthy individuals here; we’re talking about some of the biggest tech, defense, and communication corporations in the world pouring millions into a vanity project at the literal White House, per The Guardian. It’s a move that immediately sparks serious ethical and transparency concerns, especially when you consider that work is already underway to demolish the entire East Wing to make room for this new structure.

The list of companies contributing to the 90,000 sq ft ballroom is frankly astounding. Beyond the major tech players like Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, and Google, the donors also include defense contractors like Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin, and Palantir, along with communication companies T-Mobile and Comcast. These aren’t just corporations; they’re entities that regularly do major business with the federal government.

Trump is getting too comfortable with getting money from businesses

Lockheed Martin alone is a defense behemoth. Seeing these names shell out big bucks to fund a presidential ballroom raises the all-important question: what are they getting in return? It looks like a classic case of paying for access, which is not what you want at the highest level of government.

The list isn’t just corporate, though; it also features major Trump campaign supporters. We’re talking about people like the casino magnate’s widow, Miriam Adelson, the Blackstone CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, oil tycoon Harold Hamm, and the crypto billionaires Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss. The Commerce Secretary, Howard Lutnick, who is the former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, is also on the list. Some of these donors, including representatives from Google, Amazon, and Lockheed Martin, were even treated to a White House dinner last week to celebrate their contributions to the project.

The whole thing feels rushed and incredibly secretive. Despite the project’s initial cost being $200 million, the President upped the figure to $300 million just yesterday. And get this: demolition crews started gutting the East Wing on Monday without any official announcement of the demolition plans. Senior officials have cited that the demolition will be done “within days.”

This lack of transparency has understandably sparked some major outrage. House Democrats sent a letter to the White House on Thursday rebuking the demolition. Their letter pulls no punches, saying, “This project represents one of the most substantial alterations to the White House in modern history,” and criticizing that the decisions “were made in complete secrecy and undertaken without public disclosure or proper consultation”.

They even point out that the federal agency that oversees construction on federal buildings, the National Capital Planning Commission, is currently closed due to the government shutdown. That’s one heck of a coincidence, isn’t it? The White House is arguing that they didn’t need approval for the demolition, but the National Trust for Historic Preservation told the White House that the public review process with the commission is “legally required.”