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.
California voters will consider a controversial proposal in November to temporarily raise taxes on billionaires after the labor union backing the measure announced Thursday it would forge ahead despite pressure from critics to withdraw it.
The proposal, backed by the Service Employees International Union Healthcare Workers West, would impose a one-time 5% tax on individuals whose net worth exceeds $1 billion and who were living in the state as of Jan. 1, 2026. The goal is to generate $100 billion in revenue, mainly to fund the state’s Medicaid system after federal cuts.
“I am all in on this,” union President Dave Regan said on a Zoom call, adding that opponents of the proposal are “totally out of touch.”
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom and many traditional allies of the union oppose the measure. They argue it is a temporary fix for an ongoing problem and that it would push the ultrawealthy to leave the state, taking the money they would contribute in income taxes with them. Newsom, who is considering a presidential run as he prepares to leave office in January, has generally opposed tax increases during his time as governor.
A coalition of healthcare, education and housing groups — including the California Medical Association and California School Boards Association — banded together last week to fight the tax.
“The dangerous wealth tax directly threatens vital funding for education and schools, healthcare and clinics, public safety, and infrastructure projects by making California’s revenue even more volatile,” the coalition said in a statement.
Brian Brokaw, a Newsom political adviser who is leading a political committee opposing the tax, said it would “make California’s biggest challenges worse.”
“Driving away the state’s sustainable tax base for a one-time grab is bad policy and an even worse deal for 40 million Californians who will be left holding the bag,” he said in a statement.
Under the proposal, the state would spend the money generated from the tax over multiple years. The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s Office estimates that the proposal would generate tens of billions of dollars in the first few years, but that income tax revenues would subsequently decline by hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Many of the Silicon Valley tech moguls who oppose the measure have already moved their assets to other states or threatened to do so to avoid the possible tax. They have also spent millions to try to defeat it.
Since the proposal was announced in October, Google co-founder Sergey Brin has donated $82 million to a political committee called Building a Better California that backs a variety of initiatives designed to blunt the billionaire tax proposal. It has raised more than $118 million, counting Brin’s contributions, from fewer than a dozen donors.
California relies on its top 1% of earnersfor nearly half of its personal income tax revenue.
The union offered to scale back its proposal last week, asking Newsom to back a 2% tax on billionaires instead. But the governor’s office said the lower rate didn’t change his stance.
The proposed tax may have piqued the interest of many Democrats because it comes at a time when they are particularly concerned about affordability, income inequality and federal cutbacks to government programs, said Martin Gilens, a political science professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
“There’s kind of a perfect storm that sort of bolsters preexisting inclinations to be sympathetic to the idea of raising taxes on the well-to-do,” he said.
But there’s a catch. Support for ballot initiatives often declines as the election nears, and if the measure passes, it’s likely to face legal challenges, Gilens said.
Since taking office one week ago, Bill Pulte, the acting director of national intelligence, has busied himself on social media posting flattering photos of President Donald Trump, trivia about a former counterintelligence agent and praising his current staff.
What the Trump loyalist with no intelligence experience has not done is address the public about his plans, or calm the unease and confusion inside the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which is being described by top officials as “chaotic” amid firings of senior personnel with threats of more to come.
One image posted to the official X account of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, apparently artificial intelligence-generated, features Trump raising a clenched fist in the air with two B-2 stealth bombers in the sky behind him. Another is an image of the president, his fist clenched, glowering as he stands behind the Oval Office’s Resolute Desk.
In another post, Pulte, who was expected to gut the workforce of the National Counterterrorism Center, instead declared the staff there “true professionals and American patriots” after he said he spent time with them, adding “it is a privilege to work beside them.”
And in an apparent attempt at levity, Pulte reposted a message reminding Americans that Tuesday was “National Typewriter Day” and informing them of the role that a former Army counterintelligence agent played.
“Fun CI fact,” the post reads. “Former Army CI Special Agent Leroy Anderson composed ‘The Typewriter’ on October 9, 1950.”
But Pulte’s arrival has sparked anxiety and fear among the office’s workforce, three former U.S. intelligence officials told MS NOW, granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic.
They said that a half dozen political appointees were removed from their posts and several dozen staffers were sent back to their home intelligence agencies. Beyond that, little else is known about Pulte’s plans.
Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MS NOW that his requests for more information from the office, known by the acronym ODNI, have been rebuffed.
“I’ve been calling over there all day and can’t get my calls returned,” said Himes.
He later said, “I spoke directly to their office of congressional affairs. They said they had nothing for me.”
“It seems like it’s totally chaotic at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,” Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said on a podcast Wednesday. “There was word that there was going to be firings and then he said he changed his mind. We don’t know.”
Marc Polymeropoulos, a former senior CIA official and now an MS NOW contributor, said that staff in the intelligence community do not know what to think.
“Everyone is in the same boat and unsure of what is going on,” he said. “That said, there is no love lost for the DNI, as many believe that there is redundancy that does need to be cut.”
The other former U.S. intelligence officials said they agree that the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is in need of reform. The agency was created after a lack of information sharing among U.S. intelligence agencies played a role in the failure to stop the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. ODNI’s mission is to ensure that the country’s now 18 different intelligence agencies share information with one another.
But the former intelligence officials said Pulte is patently unqualified to design or carry out those reforms.
“As with many things Trump alights upon, there is a sliver of truth here but he goes about addressing it in the worst possible way,” a former senior U.S. intelligence official told MS NOW, granted anonymity over concerns of retaliation. “But mass firings without any kind of sense of what you are trying to accomplish is addressing it in the most ham-handed way.”
That former official, as well as Warner and Himes, have said they fear that Pulte’s mission is to use his position as the nation’s top intelligence official to help Trump interfere in the midterm elections in November.
Pulte, who simultaneously serves as the Trump administration’s top federal housing official as head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, used government mortgage information to file several criminal referrals against Democrats whom Trump considered enemies, including Sen. Adam Schiff of California and New York State Attorney General Letitia James. None of Pulte’s referrals have resulted in criminal convictions.
One fear expressed by Warner and some former intelligence officials is that Pulte may try to falsely claim that his office has found evidence that foreign governments are secretly funding Democratic candidates.
One way he could do that, they say, is by falsely claiming foreign actors have hacked U.S. voting machines and altered vote totals in favor of Democrats. And Pulte and FBI agents could seize voting machines, ballots and election records in November — as Gabbard did in Fulton County, Georgia, last year at Trump’s behest — as part of voter fraud investigations that please the president.
“I have to tell you, I was extraordinarily concerned about the former director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, interfering in our election,” Warner told NPR earlier this month. “The concerns I had with Tulsi Gabbard now, upon reflection, look small versus the concerns I have with Bill Pulte.”
David Rohde is the senior national security reporter for MS NOW and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting. Previously he was the senior executive editor for national security and law for NBC News.
Former President Barack Obama slammed President Donald Trump for obsessing over him while serving in the nation’s highest office.
“I obviously, you know, have a room in his head. A suite in his head,” Obama said an an episode of the podcast “All The Smoke,” posted Wednesday.
“Look, first of all, when I was president, the last thing I had time to do was worry about what somebody said, or what my predecessor did,” Obama told the two hosts, former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. “They’re gone. I’ve got work to do.”
Trump has a long history of publicly insulting the former president, often invoking Obama’s middle name, Hussein.
Trump has also heavily promoted the false and racist “birther” conspiracy theory, which claimed that Obama was ineligible to serve as president because he was born in Kenya rather than the United States.
Earlier this year, Trump drew criticism after sharing a racist artificial intelligence-generated video on his Truth Social account depicting the former president and former first lady Michelle Obama as apes. The video was later deleted, and Trump did not apologize.
Before launching the war against Iran with Israel on Feb. 28, Trump repeatedly criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 diplomatic agreement primarily negotiated by Obama that also limited Iran’s nuclear capabilities in exchange for sweeping economic sanctions relief.
More recently, Trump trashed the newly debuted Obama Presidential Center in Chicago as a “very unattractive building” and “total disaster,” adding that when his presidential library opens, it will be “on time, on budget, best location in Miami.”
Without mentioning Trump by name, Obama criticized leaders who fixate on their predecessors, characterizing their priorities as misplaced.
“If you’re doing the job right, everyday, you’ve got five, ten things that are real hard. And you have to be constantly focused,” Obama said.
“The idea that I’d be worrying about somebody who came before and me trying to measure, ‘What’s he done today?’ Constantly worrying about that is a strange thing to me. It shows me somebody who’s not focused on the American people and the job they’re supposed to do.”
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
- California voters to decide billionaire tax measure in November
- Flattery, secrecy and chaos: Bill Pulte’s first week as intel chief
- Barack Obama says Trump gives him a ‘room in his head’
- The hypocrisy of moderate Democrats who are furious over Mamdani’s insurgency
- Thursday’s Mini-Report, 6.25.26
- NATO chief’s playbook with Trump: Show him the money
- The Lincoln Memorial should be green with envy: This reflecting pool stayed clear
- President Trump spoke to Live Nation CEO before antitrust case was settled, company lawyers reveal
- Tom Kean Jr., absent for months, to hold fundraiser on the day of his return
- Will the Hispanic Caucus welcome Darializa Avila Chevalier?
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