A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member.
Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the list shows. The Adelson family, one of the GOP’s largest donor dynasties, committed that sum as well, as did billionaire Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of telecommunications company Dish Network.
Absent from the list is Trump himself, who has said that he is helping to pay for the project. “It’s being paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine,” he said last year, days after demolition began on the old East Wing.
The White House publicly identified 37 people, companies and foundations as donors last October, without revealing the amount of their individual gifts.
The list obtained by The Post, an internal spreadsheet used to track contributions for the fundraising effort, contains the source, date and amount of all 67 donations above $10,000 recorded as of late last month. It shows a total of $333 million from private donors, aligning with the administration’s public statements. Additional records, also internal to the fundraising effort, provide more detail about the donations and indicate that at least $77 million came from donors who requested anonymity.
The list and other documents offer a panoramic view of a fundraising campaign that is extraordinary both for its size and opacity. Ordinary political giving requires public disclosure and is subject to campaign finance rules. The ballroom donations are collected by a nonprofit and then channeled to the government and into a White House account the president directly controls.
Independent experts and scholars have expressed alarm at the potential the arrangement has for influence buying and coerced giving.
Some donors on the list obtained by The Post cut large checks, while others created installment plans that are still being paid off, the additional records show. The list does not include in-kind contributions.
The Post’s reporting does not establish a connection between the donation commitments and favorable actions by the Trump administration. But the documents show that the vast majority of the funds raised came from companies and wealthy individuals with interests before the federal government.
Companies or executives of firms that have had contracts with the federal government during Trump’s second term accounted for about half of the total, The Post found.
After reviewing the list obtained by The Post, White House spokesman Davis Ingle declined to discuss individual donations but described the ballroom donors as “a wide array of great American companies and generous individuals, all of whom are contributing to make the People’s House better for generations to come.”
“The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interests, would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” he said. He added that the administration will “relentlessly pursue those responsible for this cowardly leak while continuing to protect all those who give.”
The Post is publishing the names of the 57 donors listed as having committed to giving $100,000 or more. The additional records detailing donors’ preferences show at least nine wanted to remain anonymous.
The Post attempted to reach all the donors whose names appear in this report. Most did not respond or declined to comment. Those who did comment said that there was no connection between their donations and any favorable government actions.
Nvidia, the world’s most valuable public company, became a top contributor to the ballroom in October 2025, nearly three months after it struck a groundbreaking pact with Trump to sell advanced microchips to China despite national security concerns.
CEO Jensen Huang told reporters at the time that the company was contributing to Trump’s ballroom “in a small way” but did not provide a dollar amount. Documents show Nvidia requested that its $25 million donation be kept anonymous.
“As an American company, our support for the United States is paramount, and independent of any business interests,” Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo said in response to questions from The Post. “We were proud to be able to make a donation to a nonpartisan trust that serves all Americans and have said so publicly since the donation was made.”
Major GOP donor Joseph Popolo Jr., Trump’s ambassador to the Netherlands, and his wife contributed $1 million from their family fund to support the ballroom project in late 2025, the records show. Their donation - made two months after Popolo’s confirmation - has not been previously reported.
Trump Cabinet member Kelly Loeffler of the Small Business Administration and her husband Jeff Sprecher, former chairman of the New York Stock Exchange, promised $5 million for the project, the list shows. Brandon Lutnick, chairman of investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald and the son of Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, donated stock worth more than $2.5 million, the records show.
Popolo, Loeffler, Sprecher and the Lutnicks did not respond to requests for comment.
More than three-quarters of the money for the ballroom came in commitments of $5 million or more. Among the top donors are some of America’s blue-chip companies, including Amazon, Caterpillar, Comcast, Microsoft and T-Mobile. (Amazon Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Cryptocurrency companies, now under loosened regulations from the Trump administration, and their investors promised more than $18 million. The largest portion came from Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, co-founders of the Gemini crypto exchange, who together donated bitcoin valued at $5,050,018, the records show.
The Winklevoss brothers did not respond to requests for comment.
The ballroom project has also received dozens of small contributions, some as low as $10. The list and additional documents show the source of all but $24,000 of the total donations.
The total fundraising amount falls short of the $400 million Trump has said he intends to raise for the work. The cost of building the new East Wing, which includes the ballroom, office space and an underground military facility, was projected in March to have increased to $600 million, an estimate previously reported by The Post. The White House has used taxpayer dollars to cover some of the construction cost, records show.
The ballroom donations are routed through the Trust for the National Mall, a D.C.-based nonprofit whose mission is to restore and preserve the National Mall and the White House grounds. Nonprofits are not generally required to disclose their donors.
Prospective donors were sent a “pledge agreement form,” a copy of which was obtained by The Post, for giving toward the “Donald J. Trump Ballroom.” The form lists Meredith O’Rourke, the top fundraiser for Trump’s 2024 campaign, as the main contact.
O’Rourke referred questions to the White House.
A 12-page agreement between the government and the Trust requires that the Trust “maintain the anonymity of Project donors to the extent provided by law and not publicly recognize any such donor unless explicitly authorized in writing” by staff in the White House’s Executive Residence unit.
Democratic lawmakers have denounced the fundraising for the ballroom as secretive and potentially transactional. They have demanded that the administration and the Trust provide details about the donors and circumstances of the gifts. Those demands have been rebuffed.
In a statement the Trust said: “In philanthropy, it is not uncommon for donors to request their gifts remain anonymous. The Trust is committed to honoring donors requesting anonymity.”
Pardon for international banker
One of the earliest commitments to donate to the ballroom, from Sept. 23, 2025, came from the daughter of Julio Herrera Velutini, an international banker and dual Venezuelan-Italian citizen.
In 2022, the Justice Department indicted Herrera Velutini, then 50, on bribery charges, accusing him of helping finance the campaign of Puerto Rico’s then-governor in exchange for the removal of a regulator investigating his bank. The former governor and a political consultant were also charged.
Herrera Velutini and his attorney unsuccessfully tried to get the case dismissed, claiming prosecutors were criminalizing lawful political activity.
After Trump’s victory, Herrera’s daughter, Isabela Herrera, made two donations to Trump’s MAGA Inc., a political action committee, totaling $3.5 million, campaign finance records show.
The donations prompted the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center to file a complaint with the Federal Election Commission alleging that Isabela Herrera was serving as a “straw donor” for her father. The organization described her as a self-employed financial consultant in her mid-20s whose only prior political donation was $20 to Pete Buttigieg, a 2020 Democratic presidential candidate.
The organization said it got no response from the FEC, which declined to comment for this story.
In August 2025, Herrera Velutini’s charges were reduced to a misdemeanor as part of a plea agreement.
The following month, Isabela Herrera committed to donating $2.5 million for the ballroom, which has not been previously reported. Records show she paid a first installment of $835,000 on Oct. 14, 2025. Trump pardoned Herrera Velutini in January. Herrera’s second payment was due this month, the records show.
Amid a wider Justice Department retreat from sweeping public corruption investigations, Trump also pardoned the former governor and the political consultant. The White House said the prosecutions had been politically motivated.
After the pardon, an attorney for Herrera Velutini issued a statement saying his client was “profoundly grateful to President Donald J. Trump for bestowing the grace of his benevolent pardon.”
Neither Herrera Velutini nor his daughter responded to requests for comment.
A dropped investigation
Last year, Ergen, the telecommunications executive, found his company EchoStar in the Trump administration’s crosshairs.
Brendan Carr, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, wrote Ergen in May to inform him that the agency had begun investigating EchoStar. Carr threatened to yank government licenses that were critical to the survival of the business, accusing EchoStar, owner of Dish Network, of not following through on promises it had made to upgrade its cellphone network.
The following month, Ergen met with Trump and Carr behind closed doors to discuss the investigation, according to Bloomberg. The outlet, citing unnamed sources, said the June 11 discussion included a brief exchange about Ergen’s political donations and whether he gave to candidates in both political parties.
The company referenced a June 11 meeting between Ergen and Carr in a regulatory filing and wrote that Trump “subsequently encouraged the parties involved to reach an amicable resolution.”
Ergen negotiated a deal to sell some of the company’s licenses to AT&T in August, subject to approval of the FCC and Justice Department.
Carr dropped the investigation the following month, thanking Ergen for his responses and for information he had provided.
In December, with the sale still pending, Ergen committed $12.5 million to Trump’s ballroom, according to the donation list. Records indicate Ergen requested that the source of the donation remain anonymous. The donation has not been previously reported.
He committed another $12.5 million in February, according to the list.
In May, the FCC and the Justice Department each gave EchoStar approval for the sale.
Through a spokesman, Ergen and EchoStar declined to comment. The FCC and Carr did not respond. DOJ did not provide comment for this story.
The donor list also shows $5 million “pledged” by AT&T, the only line item on the list described that way. Every other amount is listed as “won.”
In a statement to The Post, AT&T spokesperson Megan Ketterer said the company appeared to have been listed in error. “We have no idea what list you are talking about and have no plans to contribute to the Trust for the National Mall,” Ketterer said.
An approval, then a donation
Another top donor was a subsidiary of Rocket, the Detroit-based housing, finance and tech company founded by Daniel Gilbert, owner of the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers.
In March 2025, Rocket said that it planned to acquire two competitors: the home search site Redfin and the mortgage site Mr. Cooper. The moves would give Rocket a much larger share of the real estate market.
Federal agencies tasked with protecting against anticompetitive business practices declined to challenge the deals, allowing them to proceed. Five Democratic senators wrote to the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission in protest.
To acquire Mr. Cooper, Gilbert also needed approval from the Federal Housing Finance Agency.
The FHFA approved the deal on Aug. 26, 2025.
The Rocket subsidiary committed $10 million to the ballroom three weeks later. Records show it requested anonymity.
A Rocket spokesperson said the approvals and donation were not connected.
“Rocket and its related companies have supported the Trust for the National Mall and other nonpartisan organization in Washington for more than a decade,” said spokesperson Aaron Emerson. “We’re proud to join dozens of companies and individuals in improving our nation’s capital.”
An FTC spokesperson said Rocket received no special treatment, pointing to a lawsuit the agency brought against Redfin for anticompetitive practices days after the donation.
The FHFA and the Justice Department did not provide comment.
Software contracts
One of the country’s leading software providers, Salesforce, has significantly grown its government contracting business during the second Trump administration.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has attended exclusive dinners and events with Trump, including a state dinner hosted by King Charles III at Windsor Castle in September 2025 and a business summit in Japan the following month. While there, Trump thanked Benioff for previously putting him on the cover of Time magazine, which Benioff owns.
“Marc has some pretty good suggestions,” Trump said of the CEO.
The following day, Benioff committed $1 million to the ballroom, according to the list. The donation has not previously been reported, and Benioff asked that it remain anonymous.
Salesforce separately made two $1 million commitments to the ballroom, one last Christmas Eve and another Jan. 29 of this year, the list shows. The donations have not been previously reported.
In between, the Army awarded the company a contract worth up to $5.6 billion through 2035, which appears to be the largest public government contract in Salesforce’s history, according to a review of public contracting records. Announcing the contract, the Pentagon said “bids were solicited via the internet with only one received.”
Benioff and Salesforce did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, a Pentagon official said: “Outside affiliations, investors, or political connections play absolutely no role in the Department’s funding decisions.”
After this article published, an Army spokesperson said in a statement that contracts are awarded in strict compliance with federal law and are “determined exclusively by validated mission requirements, technical capability, and best value.”
One of Salesforce’s competitors, ServiceNow, also donated to the ballroom.
Last September, the General Services Administration announced what it called a “landmark” agreement with ServiceNow that would make the company’s AI-driven software available to federal agencies at a discount.
“When President Trump says the federal government needs to operate like a best-run business, he means it,” CEO Bill McDermott said as part of the announcement.
The next month, ServiceNow committed $5 million to the ballroom, a donation that has not been previously reported.
The GSA said in a statement that ServiceNow has been a federal contractor for more than a decade, adding that “its charitable or political donations - like those of any company - have no bearing on GSA’s decision to include them in federal buying catalogs.”
ServiceNow said in a statement that negotiations for the deal had been underway for a “considerable period of time.” Its government business is “separate and unconnected to any donations we make to any cause,” it said.
Of the donation, the company said: “Many of our partners and peers were also contributing to the project. We chose to join them.”
Venezuelan oil interests
Nearly $10 million for the ballroom was committed by two Trump political donors who have pursued large investments in Venezuelan oil - a market Trump has gained influence over since the U.S. seizure of President Nicolás Maduro in January.
Billionaire financier Paul Singer committed to donate $5 million through his foundation in October 2025, a month before his hedge fund received court approval to pursue a purchase of Venezuelan oil giant Citgo for $5.9 billion.
The deal will require approval from multiple federal agencies, including the Commerce Department, Energy Department, State Department and Treasury Department. It has stalled amid ongoing negotiations with the South American country’s U.S.-backed administration.
The Oklahoma oil and gas company Continental Resources and its chairman emeritus, billionaire and GOP megadonor Harold Hamm, both promised donations to the ballroom in October 2025 totaling just under $5 million.
This year, in response to the Trump administration’s call for energy companies to invest in the Venezuelan oil industry, Continental struck a tentative agreement with the country’s state-run oil company to develop 126,000 acres of untapped oil fields.
Singer declined to comment. Neither Hamm nor Continental responded.
Unlisted
Two companies and one individual the White House has publicly named as donors do not appear on the list obtained by The Post.
The companies are Hard Rock International, the hospitality chain owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida, and Tether America, a cryptocurrency firm. The individual is Paolo Tiramani, a modular homes company executive who told the Times of London that he had donated $10 million in stock.
None of the three answered The Post’s questions or explained why they are not recorded as having contributed to the ballroom fundraising campaign. Neither did the Trust for the National Mall or the White House.
Kevin Crowe, Samantha Schmidt, Dan Lamothe and Alex Horton contributed to this report.
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This article originally appeared on Washington Post at https://washingtonpost.com/investigations/2026/10/15/secret-documents-reveal-donors-behind-330-million-trumps-ballroom/