Or, one of the most corrupt displays in American history.Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up here to get The Daily Prospect Monday through Friday. [link removed]

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**OCTOBER 28, 2025**

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The release of a list of donors to Trump’s White House ballroom provides a clear opportunity to outline official corruption. Companies—heavily represented by Big Tech and crypto, as well as several firms with specific business before the government—are literally paying the president millions of dollars so he can remake the White House in his image. What are they getting out of it? Using the 

**Prospect'**s own reporting over the last year, we can offer some hypotheses [link removed].

**–David Dayen, executive editor**

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Alex Brandon/AP Photo

Here’s What Trump’s Ballroom Donors Want [link removed]

The cost of Donald Trump’s garish ballroom that’s replacing the East Wing of the White House keeps increasing, from $200 million to $300 million [link removed] and now $350 million [link removed] in a matter of days. That’s because the cost of construction isn’t nearly as important as having an inventory of donations available for corporate America to pony up. These contributions—or if you prefer, bribes—work in two directions. One, they represent cash that companies can give to secure favors from the government. Two, they serve as a disciplining function from Trump: People giving to his ballroom can’t easily speak out against his abuses of power. It’s no real surprise that the formal editorial page of

**The Washington Post** offered a limp defense of the ballroom, when the company founded by the

**Post**’s owner, Jeff Bezos, is one of the donors.

The White House has said it would allow ballroom donors to remain anonymous [link removed], but they’re the ones who put out all the names of the donors. The double game of bribery and disciplining only works if the names are public, and it certainly wouldn’t do for Trump to pay for his own ballroom out of a $230 million extortion from the Justice Department [link removed]; that wouldn’t leave any room to demand tribute from the corporate sector.

The result is among the most corrupt displays in American history, with a president agreeing to do corporations’ bidding in exchange for financing a personal shrine and staying aligned for the duration of his presidency. We’ve seen other instances of personal self-aggrandizement and favor-trading, from pardoning convicted felons [link removed] who partner with his crypto company to handing out contracts to businesses linked to his family [link removed] to letting personal friends and patrons fund the Defense Department [link removed]. (That’s all just in the last week!) But the ballroom is literally being built on a foundation of corruption, as a monument to it, on the very grounds of the White House.

Which raises the question: What do all these companies in on the ground floor, so to speak, really want? Most of the companies that officially donated [link removed] to the Trump ballroom have been in the

**Prospect**’s crosshairs for some time, and in going back through our archives we can divine why they’re debasing themselves to play this corrupt game. 

Click through to read [link removed] a rundown of the companies—and their interests—ranging from Silicon Valley oligarchs and crypto seeking a return on investment to old-fashioned antitrust cover-ups and monopolization.

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