The Dictatorship
Crypto billionaires among donors for White House ballroom
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump says his $300 million White House ballroom will be paid for “100% by me and some friends of mine.”
The White House released a list of 37 donors, including crypto billionaires, charitable organizations, sports team owners, powerful financiers, tech and tobacco giants, media companies, longtime supporters of Republican causes and several of the president’s neighbors in Palm Beach, Florida.
It’s incomplete. Among others, the list doesn’t include Carrier Group, which offered to donate an HVAC system for the ballroom, and artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidiawhose CEO, Jensen Huangpublicly discussed its donation.
The White House hasn’t said how much each donor is giving, and almost none was willing to divulge that. Very few commented on their contributions when contacted by The Associated Press.
A senior White House official said the list has grown since it was first released in October, but some companies don’t want to be publicly named until required to do so by financial disclosure regulations. No foreign individuals or entities were among the donors, according to the official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that haven’t been made public.
Here’s a look at the divulged donors:
Tech giants (8):
Amazon Background: Trump was once highly critical of company founder Jeff Bezoswho also owns The Washington Post, but has been much less so lately. Amazon donated $1 million to Trump’s inaugurationan event attended by Bezos. Its video streaming service paid $40 million to license a documentary about first lady Melania Trump. Its cloud-based computing operation, Amazon Web Services, is a major government contractor.
Apple Background: After an up-and-down relationship during Trump’s first term, CEO Tim Cook has sought to improve his standing with the president this time. Before returning to the White House, Trump hosted Cook at his Palm Beach estate, Mar-a-Lago, and said he had spoken with Cook about the company’s long-running tax battles with the European Union. Cook also donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund. In the spring, Trump threatened the computing giant with tariffs after Apple announced plans to build manufacturing facilities in India. In August, Cook presented the president with a customized glass plaque with a gold base as the CEO announced plans to bring Apple’s total investment commitment in U.S. manufacturing over four years to $600 billion.
Google Background: During his first term, Trump’s administration sued Google for antitrust violations. While a candidate last year, Trump suggested he might seek to break up the search engine behemoth. Once Trump won the election, Google donated $1 million to his inauguration, and its CEO, Sundar Pichaijoined other major tech executives in attending the ceremony. Google’s subsidiary, YouTube, agreed in September to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit with Trump after it suspended his account following the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol. According to court filings, $22 million of that went to the Trust for the National Mall, which can help pay for ballroom construction.
HP Background: An original Silicon Valley stalwart, the company donated to Trump’s inaugural fund. HP ‘s CEO, Enrique Lores, participated in a White House roundtable event in September. Lores also previously met with President Joe Biden at the White House on multiple occasions as top CEOs endorsed that administration’s economic plans.
Meta Background: Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg had been critical of Trump going back to 2016, and Facebook suspended Trump for years after the Jan. 6 insurrection. This time around, Meta contributed $1 million to Trump’s inaugurationand Zuckerberg attended.
Micron Technology Background: The producer of advanced memory computer chips announced an April 2024 agreement with the Biden administration to provide $6.1 billion in government support for Micron to make chips domestically. Then, in June, Micron pledged $200 billion for U.S. memory chip manufacturing expansion under Trump. But at least $120 billion of that involved holdovers first announced during Biden’s administration.
Microsoft Background: The company donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration, twice what it spent for Biden’s or for Trump’s first inauguration. CEO Satya Nadella has also met with Trump numerous times, as Microsoft has supported the administration’s relaxation of regulations on artificial intelligence. He met previously with Biden, too. Trump has called for Microsoft’s president of global affairs, Lisa Monaco, to be fired because she was a deputy attorney general under Biden when the Justice Department led several investigations against Trump.
Palantir Technologies Background: Co-founded by billionaire libertarian Peter Thielthe firm concentrates on artificial intelligence and machine learning. It has seen profits soar thanks to lucrative defense and other federal contracts.
Crypto (5):
Coinbase Background: The major cryptocurrency exchange was founded by Brian Armstronga top donor to a political action committee that helped Trump and other pro-crypto candidates in 2024. Armstrong attended the first crypto summit at the White House in March. Coinbase also hired Trump’s co-campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, to its Global Advisory Council.
Ripple Background: In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission dropped a lawsuit filed during Trump’s first term, which accused the company of violating securities laws by selling XRP crypto coins without a securities registration. In his second term, Trump has eased regulations on digital assets, repealing an SEC accounting rule and a previous presidential executive order mandating more federal study and proposed changes to crypto regulations.
Tether Background: A cryptocurrency company and major stablecoins issuer, Tether paid fines for misleading investors. CEO Paolo Ardoino has been to Trump’s White House, and, in April, the company hired former Trump administration crypto policy official Bo Hines to lead its domestic expansion efforts.
Cameron Winklevoss and Tyler Winklevoss Background: Each Winklevoss twin is listed as a separate donor. Best known as Zuckerberg’s chief antagonists in “The Social Network,” the brothers founded the Gemini cryptocurrency exchange. Biden’s SEC sued Gemini for selling unregistered securitiesbut the case has been paused under Trump.
Energy and industrial (4):
Caterpillar Background: The equipment maker ‘s PAC has donated to candidates from both parties, but given more to Republicans. It has also said publicly that Trump’s tariffs, some of which the administration has now easedcould increase its costs and hurt earnings.
NextEra Energy Background: NextEra is the world’s largest electric utility holding company. Trump says he’ll work to ensure tech giants can secure their own sources of electricity to power data centers, especially as they expand energy-hogging artificial intelligence operations. Google recently entered into an agreement to buy power from a shuttered nuclear power plant in Iowa owned by NextEra, which the company plans to bring back online in 2029.
Paolo Tiramani Background: An American industrial designer who has donated to Trump’s political campaigns. Tiramani, with his son, runs BOXABL, a firm specializing in modular, prefabricated homes.
Union Pacific Background: Trump has endorsed the company’s proposed $85 billion acquisition of Norfolk Southern, which would be the largest-ever rail merger. It also will be up to the president to appoint two more Republican members of the Surface Transportation Board, who will ultimately decide whether to approve the merger. In August, Trump fired one of the two Democratic members of the board.
Philanthropy (3):
Adelson Family Foundation Background: Founded to strengthen the state of Israel and the Jewish people, the foundation was created by Miriam Adelson, the majority owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, close Trump ally and longtime GOP megadonor. She’s also the widow of Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire founder and owner of Las Vegas Sands.
Betty Wold Johnson Foundation Background: Based in Palm Beach, the foundation supports health, arts and culture initiatives, as well as environmental and educational programs. It’s named in honor of the mother of New York Jets owner Woody Johnsonwho served as Trump’s ambassador to the United Kingdom during his first term.
Laura & Isaac Perlmutter Fou ndation Background: The nonprofit based in Lake Worth Beach, near Palm Beach, focuses on promoting health care, social justice, the arts and community initiatives. Isaac is an Israeli American businessman and financier and former chair of Marvel Entertainment. He and his wife have donated to Trump’s presidential campaigns and affiliated PACs.
Trump administration officials (3):
Benjamin Leon Jr. Background: The Cuban American founder of Miami-based Leon Medical Centers is Trump’s nominee for U.S. ambassador to Spain.
Kelly Loeffler and Jeffrey Sprecher Background: A former Republican senator from GeorgiaLoeffler heads Trump’s Small Business Administration. Her husband is CEO of the energy market Intercontinental Exchange Inc. and chairs the New York Stock Exchange. The couple faced scrutiny in 2020 for dumping substantial portions of their portfolio and purchasing new stocksincluding in firms making protective equipment, after Congress received briefings on the severity of the coming coronavirus pandemic.
Lutnick Family Background: Howard Lutnick is Trump’s commerce secretary. A crypto enthusiast, he once headed the brokerage and investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald.
Communications/entertainment (3):
Comcast Background: The mass media and telecom conglomerate has often been criticized by Trump, including in April, when the president posted that Comcast was a “disgrace to the integrity of broadcasting.” The company owns NBC and is spinning off BLN. It could be interested in acquiring Warner Bros. Discover, and that would leave Comcast looking for government approval.
Hard Rock International Background: A Florida-based gaming and tourism concern owned by the Seminole Tribe, the company operates a number of casinos, including the former Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Trump has for decades criticized federal exemptions allowing tribes to operate casinos.
T-Mobile Background: The wireless carrier is indirectly linked to Trump Mobile, which the president’s family controls and offers gold phones and cell service in a licensing deal. Trump Mobile uses Liberty Mobile Wireless, a small, Florida-based network that T-Mobile says runs its operations on T-Mobile’s network. T-Mobile says that is unrelated to its decision to donate to Trump’s ballroom, which it says is meant to “restore and enrich the historic landmarks that define our nation’s capital.”
Big Tobacco (2):
Altria Group Background: The tobacco giant controls Philip Morris USA, maker of Marlboro. It has pressed for federal crackdowns on counterfeit and illegal vaping products. The company donated $50,000 to Trump’s inauguration.
Reynolds American Background: With brands including Lucky Strike and Camel, the company has been active in lobbying to steer the Trump administration away from a Biden-proposed ban on menthol cigarettes.
Defense/national security (2):
Booz Allen Hamilton Background: A major defense and national security technology firm with extensive government contracts, it paid fines to settle lawsuits with the Justice Department under Biden. Booz Allen Hamilton agreed to pay more than $377 million in 2023 to settle allegations that it improperly billing costs to its government contracts. In January, it paid nearly $16 million to settle allegations that it submitted fraudulent claims in connection with government contracts.
Lockheed Martin Corporation Background: The massive defense contractor has huge government contracts. It said in a statement that it “is grateful for the opportunity to help bring the President’s vision to reality and make this addition to the People’s House.”
Individuals (7):
Stefan E. Brodie Background: A biotech entrepreneur and co-founder of the chemical manufacturing company Purolite, Brodie and his family donated to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and affiliated committees. Brodie and his brother, Donald, were convicted in 2002 of circumventing U.S. sanctions on Cuba.
Charles and Marissa Cascarilla Background: Charles Cascarilla is co‑founder of the blockchain firm Paxos. He and his wife are philanthropists who have advocated for financial technology sector deregulation.
J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul Background: Longtime Republican donors and Palm Beach residents, the couple controls U.S. sugar refining interests that includes the Domino brand.
Edward and Shari Glazer Background: Members of the family that owns the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers and has a controlling stake in the Manchester United football club, the couple donated to Trump’s campaign. Edward is the founder and CEO of US Property Trust, which operates shopping centers, and the car dealership company US Auto Trust.
Harold Hamm Background: The billionaire oil tycoon and pioneer of hydraulic fracturing heads the oil producer Continental Resources. He’s praised the Trump administration for aggressively moving to purchase oil to replenish the Strategic Petroleum Reserve stockpile.
Stephen A. Schwarzman Background: A Palm Beach resident and chair and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global private equity firm he helped establish in 1985. Schwarzman has donated to Trump and his PACs previously and led his first-term President’s Strategic and Policy Forum.
Konstantin Sokolov Background: Born in Russia, he immigrated to the U.S. and now heads the Chicago-based private equity firm IJS Investments. Sokolov has donated to many educational and charitable causes in the past, and to Trump’s political campaigns.
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Associated Press writer Darlene Superville contributed to this report.
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This story has been updated to correct the first name of an individual who donated to the White House ballroom. He is Harold Hamm, not Howard Hamm.
This is an adapted excerpt from the March 24 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
Donald Trump’s war on Iran is in its fourth week. Gas prices are up $1 a gallon in much of the country. Stocks continue to fall on fears of global supply shortages.
The death toll is growing. Thirteen American service members have lost their livesand more than 1,200 Iranians have been killed, along with upward of 1,000 people in Lebanonmore than 150 in the surrounding Gulf states and 17 Israelis. That’s not accounting for the millions who are displaced and the thousands who have been injured, including hundreds of U.S. troops.
But according to the president who launched the war, it’s all over.
It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump expected a fast and easy win.
“We’ve won this. This war has been won,” he told reporters Tuesday in the Oval Office. “The only one that likes to keep it going is the fake news.”
However, during those same remarks, Trump was all over the place — talking about an epic victory, ongoing peace negotiations and personal gifts.
It was all completely counter to his posture over the weekend, when he threatened to “obliterate” Iranian civilian power plants — essentially teasing a war crime — if Iran did not stop blocking oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuzsomething Iran was not doing before Trump attacked them.
But now, he has supposedly pressed pause on that bombing plan for five days because, he said, the negotiations are going well.
When he first announced that in a social media post Monday, it sent oil prices down 10% and boosted stocks.
However, those markets reversed themselves Tuesday after the Iranians said they have not engaged in any serious high-level negotiations with the Americans, and they claimed Trump was making things up to help oil prices. The Israelis said the same thing. (That’s not to say you should take Iran’s word for it, or Israel’s, but you shouldn’t take the White House’s word, either.)
It is becoming increasingly clear that Trump expected a fast and easy win. He had no plan B, and now he is flailing to find some kind of fallback position.
On Monday, sources from the administration told Politico that they have their eyes on a future U.S.-backed leader of Iran: Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, speaker of the Iranian parliament.
“He’s a hot option,” one unnamed U.S. source — who seems to really wants a deal — told Blue Light News. “He’s one of the highest. … But we got to test them, and we can’t rush into it.”
But on Tuesday, that “hot option” trolled Trump for what he called a “jawboning campaign” to stabilize oil prices. In a social media postGhalibaf wrote: “[L]et’s see if they can turn that into ‘actual fuel’ at the pump — or maybe even print gas molecules!”
Call it the fog of Trumpian war: a million contradictory messages flying around, constantly wildly pinging bits of news that don’t make sense together.
Right now, we have reports that Trump’s negotiators, including his envoy Steve Witkoff and Vice President JD Vance, are traveling to Pakistan for informal talks with an Iranian official.
At the same time, unnamed U.S. officials have told The New York Times that the Saudi crown prince is pushing Trump to continue the war until Iran’s government collapses — something the Saudis publicly deny.
In fact, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Saudi officials are holding talks in Riyadh with their Arab counterparts to find a diplomatic off-ramp from the war.
On Tuesday evening, U.S. officials said the Pentagon was poised to deploy 3,000 troops of the 82nd Airborne Division to the Middle East. That is in addition to two Marine expeditionary units on their way to the region and the 50,000 U.S. troops already stationed there.
Also on Tuesday, Iranian-backed militias in Iraq are claiming that U.S. strikes there killed 30 of their members.
But, according to Trump, the peace talks are going great, right?
All eyes everywhere have been on the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran responded to the U.S. attack by striking oil tankers and shutting down 20% of the world’s supply of oil and liquefied natural gas. It is now essentially running a toll operation in the strait.
Some countries, such as China, Japan and India, are negotiating deals with Iran to get its oil out. Which is to say, Iran is shipping more oil and making more money than it was under the U.S. sanctions in place before Trump attacked it.
It’s clear the president sees what’s happening, so now he is trying to share control of the strait with Iran. Trump told reporters the strait would be “jointly controlled” by “maybe” him and “the next ayatollah.”
The administration really thought this was going to be another Venezuela. They told themselves that, and they were egged on to believe it by the staunchest advocates of the war, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Sen. Lindsey GrahamR-S.C.
But in Iran, a decapitation strike did not lead to mass uprisings. It did not lead to regime change. It led to the situation in which Iran’s regime is intact, even if militarily degraded, and they now have explicit control of the Strait of Hormuz — a huge pressure point.
It really looks like the U.S. is backed into a corner: It can sue for peace because of the oil tanker situation, but they do not have much leverage, or it can escalate the war. That may be why we’re seeing all these contradictory developments.
In Iran, a decapitation strike did not lead to mass uprisings. It did not lead to regime change. It led to the situation in which Iran’s regime is intact.
Trump issued an ultimatum he had to walk back from because he said there were deep peace negotiations, which then later proved to be completely fabricated.
Now, more U.S. troops are set to be deployed for a possible ground invasion in the Middle East, despite reports that the U.S. has supposedly sent a 15-point plan to Iran through Pakistan to end the war.
It almost looks as if Trump is trying to wave the peace card to keep a lid on oil futures and financial marketsjust long enough to have ground troops in position — and just in time for the markets to close for the weekend on Friday, when Trump’s “pause” on bombing Iranian power plants is set to end.
That could be the plan Trump now settles on, weeks into a deadly war where there was obviously, very clearly, no real plan at all.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).
The Dictatorship
Jury finds Meta and YouTube liable in landmark social media trial, awards $6 million
A California state jury found Meta and YouTube liable in a landmark social media case on Wednesday, awarding $3 million in compensatory damages to a plaintiff who brought the case and putting the Instagram maker’s liability at 70% and the Google company’s at 30%.
The jurors later decided to award a total of $3 million in punitive damages, with Meta to pay $2.1 million and YouTube $900,000. The verdict was reached on the jury’s ninth day of deliberation.
A 2023 complaint accused social media companies of fueling an unprecedented mental health crisis for American children through “addictive and dangerous” products. Plaintiffs accused the companies of deliberately tweaking their products to exploit kids’ undeveloped brains to “create compulsive use of their apps.”
The civil case was brought by several plaintiffs against several companies, but this state court trial, which featured testimonyfrom Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, involved a plaintiff described by her initials as “K.G.M.” in court papers against Instagram and YouTube.
In the 2023 complaint, K.G.M. said she was a 17-year-old in California who started using social media at a much younger age, though her mother told her not to and used third-party software to try to prevent the daughter’s social media use. The complaint alleged that the corporate defendants designed their products in ways that let kids evade parental controls and that the companies knew, or should’ve known, that K.G.M. was a minor.
The plaintiff alleged that Instagram’s and other companies’ addictive designs led her to develop “a compulsion to engage with those products nonstop” and to see “harmful and depressive content, urging K.G.M. to commit acts of self-harm, as well as harmful social comparison and body image.”
She alleged that she suffered bullying, depression, anxiety and body dysmorphia through Instagram and that Meta did nothing in response to a report about it. “Meta allowed the predatory user to continue harming minor Plaintiff K.G.M., including through the use of explicit images of a minor child,” the complaint said, adding that the company’s “defective reporting mechanisms and/or deliberate failure to act caused emotional and mental health harms to K.G.M. in addition to and separate from any third-party conduct.”
The companies, which have denied wrongdoingsaid Wednesday that they plan to appeal.
Jillian Frankel contributed from Los Angeles.
Subscribe to theDeadline: Legal Newsletterfor expert analysis on the top legal stories of the week, including updates from the Supreme Court and developments in the Trump administration’s legal cases.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
The Dictatorship
Democrat vows to turn ‘Epstein files into Epstein trials’ after release of new depositions
The House Oversight Committee on Tuesday released hours of deposition footage from its interviews with two former close associates of Jeffrey Epsteinattorney Darren Indyke and accountant Richard Kahn. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., a member of the committee, joined “The Weeknight” to discuss the interviews and the efforts to hold any accomplices of the late sex offender accountable.
“What is remarkable is that even in death, his closest associates and co-conspirators are still covering for him,” Stansbury said.
During their depositions, both Indyke and Kahn insisted they had no knowledge of Epstein’s illegal behavior. The New Mexico Democrat cast doubt on those claims, taking particular issue with Indyke’s testimony, during which she said it was possible that Epstein’s former attorney may have “perjured himself.”
“He claimed that he had no knowledge of all of these nefarious activities, and yet he literally has spent decades of his life at the center of this controversy,” she said. “I’m sorry, I’m not buying it.”
Stansbury told MS NOW she believed it was important for the public to understand that both Indyke and Kahn “stand to make tens of millions of dollars off of their execution” of Epstein’s will. She added that “the way the will is structured, there is a survivor fund, and at the end of that, they get to basically keep whatever is left over.”
“We don’t know what was written into whatever contracts, but it’s clear that they have a financial interest,” she said.
Stansbury said the pair’s depositions should be part of a greater effort from lawmakers and law enforcement across the country to pursue accountability for Epstein’s victims, even after his death. She highlighted how her home state, New Mexico, was doing just that.
“That is why we are going to continue to seek justice in this case, and it’s why in New Mexico, not only did we pass a truth commission, but one of the updates that we want to tell people about is that we plan to pursue convictions against individuals who were implicated in these crimes who were not prosecuted by the federal government,” she said. “We want to turn these Epstein files into Epstein trials — and that’s exactly what we plan to do.”
You can watch Stansbury’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
- Schumer rolls out Democrats’ midterm energy pitch
- No plan B: Trump is flailing to find an off-ramp for the Iran war
- Jury finds Meta and YouTube liable in landmark social media trial, awards $6 million
- Democrat vows to turn ‘Epstein files into Epstein trials’ after release of new depositions
- Trump’s Justice Department agrees to financial settlement with Michael Flynn
- Ukrainian energy official: Lifting Russia oil sanctions is ‘wrong approach’
- Kash Patel’s girlfriend ignites conspiracy-based feud with MAGA influencers
- No plan B: Trump is flailing to find an off-ramp for the Iran war
- Arrington: Fraud cuts for war funding
- Gallego: Merrick Garland was a ‘coward’ over Jan. 6
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