A leaked list of donors shows Apple pledged $25 million for President Donald Trump’s new White House ballroom project, reports The Washington Post.
Before you get your picket signs ready for the Apple protest and boycott, take note of other donors, so you can make plans to shame them also. Chipmaker Nvidia joined Apple as top donors by also promising $25 million. Other donors include Amazon, Cisco, Meta, Microsoft, T-Mobile, HP, Comcast, Google (although that one is from a lawsuit settlement), Micron, Palantir, and Salesforce. The total of donations adds up to $333 million. Some donors paid their part of the bill in full and some are paying on the installment plan.
While its traditional to see public disclosure about this sort of thing, and there are campaign finance rules that generally apply to these things, the White House has not publicly disclosed donation amounts. All ballroom donations are being funneled through a nonprofit and then moved into a White House account controlled by the President.
A White House spokesperson was quoted as saying the administration will “relentlessly pursue those responsible” for the leaked list.
President Trump had the White House’s East Wing demolished to make room for the new party palace, and a recent estimate says the 90,000 square feet ballroom will seat 1,000 guests and will cost approximately $600 million, half of which will come from taxpayers’ pockets.
