{"id":116821,"date":"2025-11-03T11:36:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:36:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?post_type=news&#038;p=116821"},"modified":"2025-11-03T11:36:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T16:36:33","slug":"corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Corporate Donors to Trump\u2019s White House Ballroom Beset by Conflicts, Received $279 Billion in Government Contracts in the Past Five Years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 The corporate and billionaire donors to Donald Trump\u2019s gaudy ballroom project are beset by conflicts of interest, according to a <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?post_type=article&amp;p=116685&amp;preview=true\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">new Public Citizen report.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Here are some quick facts from the report:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Two-thirds of the 24 known corporate donors have recent government contracts for projects, totaling $279 billion over the last five years. Lockheed Martin is the largest of the government contractors, with $191 billion in federal contracts over the last five years.<br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Of the 24 corporate donors, 14 are facing federal enforcement actions and\/or have had federal enforcement actions suspended by the Trump administration. These include major antitrust actions involving Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, Nvidia and T-Mobile; labor rights cases involving Amazon, Apple, Caterpillar, Google, Lockheed and Meta; and SEC matters involving Coinbase and Ripple.<\/span><\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The corporate and billionaire funders of the ballroom have spent $1.6 billion on lobbying and campaign contributions over the last five years.<\/span><\/span>&nbsp;<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The companies self-report a stunningly wide array of interests before the federal government, involving everything from taxation to trade policy, battlefield domain awareness to telephone poles, consumer privacy to product liability rules, appropriations to cybersecurity \u2013 and much more.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Public Citizen Co-President Robert Weissman, <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">an author of the report, said these corporations\u2019 hunger for political gain seems thinly veiled:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cThese giant corporations aren\u2019t funding the Trump ballroom debacle out of a sense of civic pride. They have massive interests before the federal government and they undoubtedly hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration. Millions to fund Trump\u2019s architectural whims are nothing compared to the billions at stake in procurement, regulatory and enforcement decisions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cBut this is more than everyday corporate influence seeking. Paying tribute is a mark of authoritarianism and in making these payments, these corporations are aiding Trump\u2019s authoritarian project. They should withdraw their contributions.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Read the full report <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/?post_type=article&amp;p=116685&amp;preview=true\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here.<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> For interviews with Public Citizen experts, contact Press Officer Katie Garcia at kgarcia@citizen.org.<\/span><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-116821","news","type-news","status-publish","hentry","tax_topic-money-in-politics","tax_topic-protecting-democracy","tax_case_topic-campaign-finance-elections","tax_news-press"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Corporate Donors to Trump\u2019s White House Ballroom Beset by Conflicts, Received $279 Billion in Government Contracts in the Past Five Years - Public Citizen<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Corporate Donors to Trump\u2019s White House Ballroom Beset by Conflicts, Received $279 Billion in Government Contracts in the Past Five Years - Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 The corporate and billionaire donors to Donald Trump\u2019s gaudy ballroom project are beset by conflicts of interest,&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Public Citizen\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/publiccitizen\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/public_citizen_shared_link.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@Public_Citizen\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.citizen.org\/news\/corporate-donors-to-trumps-white-house-ballroom-beset-by-conflicts-received-279-billion-in-government-contracts-in-the-past-five-years\/\",\"name\":\"Corporate Donors to Trump\u2019s White House Ballroom Beset by Conflicts, Received $279 Billion in Government Contracts in the Past Five Years - 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