As Trump rebuilds the White House, critics ask what donors to his $300m ballroom are getting in return

Dan Diamond, Victoria Bisset

The Washington Post

6 Min Read

26 Oct 2025

Updated

26 Oct 2025

United States President Donald J Trump holds a mockup of the White House ballroom. Credit: Pool/ABACA/PA

President Donald Trump’s swift demolition of the White House’s East Wing this week stunned conservationists and many Americans. But ethics experts and Democrats say they are turning to a question related to the next phase of the project: whether the donors behind the planned $300 million ($A460 million) ballroom that will replace the demolished annex will receive any benefits in return.

Tech companies and defence contractors such as Google, Lockheed Martin and Microsoft, as well as wealthy individuals such as longtime GOP donors Stephen A Schwarzman and Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter, have collectively covered the cost for Mr Trump’s project, according to a list the White House released Thursday.

Many of the firms and individuals have business before the administration, such as seeking future federal contracts or eyeing potential acquisitions.

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“It’s very concerning to see them on this list for a project where they don’t have any intrinsic interest,” said Claire Finkelstein, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania who founded the school’s Centre for Ethics and the Rule of Law.

Ms Finkelstein said she is eager to learn more about what the companies were told and the specifics of their arrangements.

“You don’t want the administration to be a shakedown organisation, having the ability to go to private corporations and demand that they turn over money for pet projects,” she said.

Sen Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) on Friday sent letters to all 37 donors identified by the White House, asking each to explain how they were solicited to donate, how much they gave and what they expected to receive in return.

“The use of private donations to fund this project raises questions that Americans deserve to have answered,” Mr Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, wrote in letters to the donors that his office shared with The Washington Post.

The top Democrats on the House Natural Resources and Oversight committees Thursday, also demanded details on the project and whether donors were promised any services in exchange for their gifts.

“This demolition of an iconic symbol of a democracy run of, by, and for the people is slated to be funded by major donations from billionaires and corporations,” Reps. Jared Huffman (California) and Robert Garcia (California) wrote in a letter to Mr Trump, joined by Rep. Yassamin Ansari (Arizona).

Many of the donors identified by the White House - including Altria Group, Amazon and Apple - have previously donated to Mr Trump’s inauguration fund or other GOP initiatives. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)

Most did not respond to questions about their donations or declined to comment on the reason for their gifts, but some did.

Paolo Tiramani, the founder of BOXABL, a company that makes prefabricated homes, said in an email Friday that his donor-advised fund gave $10 million in personal equities to Mr Trump’s ballroom project.

Mr Tiramani said current facilities at the White House were not large enough to host events that “our country deserves” and said Mr Trump “has put blood, treasure, life and liberty on the line to serve and I love him for it.”

He added that the White House has been modified “many times over two centuries.”

Meredith O’Rourke, a longtime fundraiser for Mr Trump, is coordinating the donations, according to two people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the efforts. Ms O’Rourke referred questions about her role to the White House, which did not immediately respond.

The donations, which are tax-deductible, are being managed by the Trust for the National Mall, a nonprofit that helps manage federal projects.

Donors to Mr Trump’s ballroom project have been told to expect some form of recognition, such as the placement of etchings of their names in the ballroom, according to the people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr Trump said this week he has raised $350 million for his long-desired ballroom, which will be built on the site previously occupied by the East Wing, the longtime home to a visitor’s entrance to the White House.

The annex also provided office space for the first lady and included other features such as a movie theatre. The president, who did not specify what he would do with the extra $50 million for the project, said that he has donated “millions of dollars” himself for the beautification of the White House grounds and pledged to personally cover any shortfall in funding for construction of the ballroom if costs continued to rise.

White House officials also said this week that the East Wing will be “modernized and rebuilt,” that items previously located in the annex have been safely secured, and that there is a long tradition of presidents making changes to the White House grounds - sometimes amid controversy, before the new addition inevitably becomes accepted as part of a building long known as the “People’s House.”

“In due time, the East Wing is going to be more beautiful and modern than ever before,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters, defending the administration’s transparency about its construction projects.

White House press officials did not immediately respond to a request for details on.

Mr Trump’s teardown of the East Wing, which The Post first reported Monday, prompted a massive backlash from historic preservationists and Democrats, who accused Mr Trump of destroying a national landmark and doing so under a cloak of secrecy.

Satellite photos this week also showed that several magnolia trees planted to honour past presidents and a garden that honoured former first lady Jackie Kennedy have been razed or removed.

A pair of YouGov polls this week found that about half of Americans oppose the demolition of the East Wing and about a quarter support it, with the remainder undecided. The survey also found that opinions calcified along partisan lines as the project drew more attention and sparked political discourse.

While 44 per cent of Republicans said Tuesday that they supported the partial demolition of the East Wing, that number climbed to 58 per cent of Republicans on Thursday who said they backed its full demolition.

Some experts said the backlash this week often ignored the differences between the iconic White House residence and its less well-known annex.

The original East Wing, constructed in 1902, “was a fine example of the French academic manner,” said Gibson Worsham, an architect who studied the building during the first Trump administration.

But that building was rebuilt in the 1940s to accommodate a new presidential bunker and the first lady’s offices - and the new East Wing “was not as architecturally distinguished as its original form,” said Worsham, who Mr Trump briefly appointed to a planning commission in the final days of his first term before Mr Biden removed him weeks later.

Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s solicitation of private funds to build the ballroom has provoked less reaction, and many Americans appear to support the idea. A YouGov survey conducted on Thursday found that 52 per cent of Americans said White House renovations should be paid for by private donors to save taxpayer money, versus 19 per cent who said the renovations should be paid for by taxpayers to prevent donor influence.

But ethics experts, Democrats, and even some Republicans said the project has left them uneasy.

“All this was done without public demand or support, and was done in a way that was abrupt, complete, unstoppable,” conservative columnist Peggy Noonan wrote Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, adding that the secrecy raised questions about the initiative, such as whether donors were buying influence.

“Might the whole thing be open to corruption? Would it even have been attempted in a fully functioning, sharp and hungry republic? Or only a tired one that’s being diminished?”

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The companies and people donating for President Trump’s planned $300 million White House ballroom

The White House released a list Thursday of corporations and individuals that the administration says are helping fund the project.

Altria Group

Amazon

Apple

Booz Allen Hamilton

Caterpillar

Coinbase

Comcast Corporation

J. Pepe and Emilia Fanjul

Hard Rock International