As demolition crews this week bulldozed the White House’s East Wing to replace it with a massive ballroom, President Donald Trump has emphasized that the dramatic changes will come at “zero cost to the American Taxpayer.”
Instead, the donors picking up the tab include some of the country’s biggest corporations, including many who have business before the federal government, along with many longtime supporters of the president, according to a CNN review of a donor list released by the Trump administration.
Trump has been recruiting donors for the construction project for months, showing off renderings and scale models to Oval Office visitors. Now estimated to cost $300 million, the work is being funded by private, tax-deductible donations routed through the nonprofit Trust for the National Mall.
The president has said he will personally pay for some of the project, but the White House hasn’t specified how much. At least one donation of $22 million from Google was made on “behalf” of Trump as part of a legal settlement over the president being banned from YouTube in 2021, court documents show.
The ballroom donors were feted at a White House dinner last week. Now that the demolition has begun, here’s who’s paying for the overhaul of the country’s most famous residence.
Miriam Adelson, a billionaire who made her fortune in casinos alongside her late husband Sheldon and has been a major Trump donor, runs this philanthropic foundation. Trump awarded Adelson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2018.
Previously known as Phillip Morris, tobacco giant Altria Group is the seller of Virginia Slims, Marlboro and Parliament cigarettes in the United States.
Amazon billionaire founder Jeff Bezos told the world he was “optimistic” about a second Trump presidency late last year, saying he appreciated his “energy” around reducing regulations. The president called out Amazon publicly earlier this year when he learned that the e-commerce retailer was considering displaying tariff costs for consumers, which the company said it would not do.
Apple CEO Tim Cook served on Trump’s American Workforce Policy Advisory Board during his first term. He attended the president’s 2025 inauguration along with other tech leaders, and this summer presented Trump with a customized 24-karat gold-and-glass statuette in the Oval Office while announcing plans to invest $100 billion in US jobs and suppliers.
The late Betty Wold Johnson was a philanthropist and mother of the two owners of the New York Jets, who are the foundation’s co-presidents. One of her sons, Woody Johnson, served as ambassador to the United Kingdom during Trump’s first term.