News broke last year that some of the biggest names in tech, crypto, and defense were donating millions to an entity controlled by President Donald Trump, ostensibly to pay for construction of a new ballroom at the White House. Thanks to new reporting from the Washington Post, we know how much each company has allegedly paid and that many donors wanted to remain secret.
Four organizations and people donated $25 million each, according to the Post, including Apple, Nvidia, the Adelson Family Foundation, and Charlie Ergen, the founder of Dish Network and EchoStar, making them the largest donors to Trump’s ballroom.
Other tech companies have donated to Trump’s nonprofit, including Microsoft ($10 million), Meta ($5 million), Amazon ($5 million), and Cisco ($5 million), among others. Defense contractors Palantir and Lockheed Martin have each donated $10 million. Comcast has donated $7.5 million, and T-Mobile has donated $5 million. Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have together donated over $5 million in bitcoin, according to the Post.
Donations are officially sent to a nonprofit called Trust for the National Mall, according to the Post. Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren has accused the nonprofit of being “a vehicle for politicized fundraising, influence peddling, and donor access to President Trump, to advance the President’s goal of building a $300 million ballroom at the White House.”
Google has donated $22 million, though that money is reportedly coming from a legal settlement after YouTube banned President Trump from the platform following his self-coup attempt at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump was later reinstated but sued the tech giant, which agreed in late 2025 to pay $24.5 million, with $22 million going to the Trust for the National Mall.
AT&T is reportedly listed as having “pledged” $5 million, a distinction that’s different from the other donations in the documents, according to the Post. But the company told the newspaper: “We have no idea what list you are talking about and have no plans to contribute to the Trust for the National Mall.”
Several companies have asked that their donations remain anonymous, including Nvidia. A spokesperson for the company sent a statement to Gizmodo that reads: “As an American company, our support for the United States is paramount, and independent of any business interests. We were proud to be able to make a donation to a nonpartisan trust that serves all Americans and have said so publicly since the donation was made.”
The new report reveals several donors that weren’t previously known, including $5 million from ServiceNow and $2 million in commitments from Salesforce, along with a $1 million commitment from Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff himself.
The Post notes the significant government contracts that Salesforce has obtained since Trump took power in Jan. 2025, including an Army contract worth up to $5.6 billion. The Salesforce donations were secret until the Post’s report on Thursday, according to the paper. Neither ServiceNow nor Salesforce immediately responded to emailed questions about the donations.
People with substantial interests in the oil industry also made donations, according to the Post, including Paul Singer ($5 million) and Harold Hamm ($5 million). Singer’s hedge fund is part of a deal to buy Venezuelan oil company Citgo for $5.9 billion, something the Post notes will require approval from several federal government agencies. Hamm is also part of a deal to invest in Venezuelan oil development.
Back in 2025, Trump said the ballroom would cost $250 million, but more recently he’s said that he wants to raise $400 million. Leaked documents have revealed the total cost will be closer to $600 million, according to the Washington Post. More than half of that money will reportedly come from taxpayers.
Trump demolished the East Wing of the White House last year without any warning to Congress or even the American people. It was a classic Trump move, destroying something before anyone could stop him, and is the kind of action historically seen in authoritarian countries around the world.
Notably absent from the list is any mention of SpaceX, OpenAI, or Anthropic. But Elon Musk is certainly doing his part to hold up the tech oligarchy. The SpaceX founder has spent at least $366 million on the midterms to support Republicans in an effort to retain control of the House and Senate. But polling suggests Democrats are likely to take the House, and the Senate remains a possibility.
None of that may matter, as far as Trump is concerned. Speaking to a crowd in Arizona, he bragged about how he didn’t get approval from Congress to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.
Trump: “I didn’t go to Congress. Remember Sleepy Joe? ‘Oh, if they would give me approval in Congress!’ You’re not gonna get approval. You just do it. You’re the president.”
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) October 14, 2026 at 1:42 PM
“I didn’t go to Congress,” Trump told the crowd. “You just do it. You’re the president.”
