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elizabeth warren
'Pay-to-Play Loyalty Program': Trump Ballroom Donors Have Been Handed $50 Billion in Federal Contracts
"Corporations wrote big checks to build Trump’s golden ballroom," said Rep. Jason Crow. "Now they’re receiving billions of dollars in kickbacks—paid for by your tax dollars."
Jun 05, 2026
Sen. Elizabeth Warren suggested President Donald Trump is running a "pay-to-play loyalty program for wealthy donors" after a report on Thursday revealed that more than half the companies that contributed to his White House ballroom project have been awarded government contracts over the last six months, totaling over $50 billion.
Examining the 27 publicly known corporate donors to the president’s $400 million gold-plated vanity project, the watchdog group Public Citizen found that 14 of them—more than half—had received either new or expanded contracts over the past six months after donating millions to the ballroom and appearing at a lavish White House banquet in October as Trump prepared to demolish the building's East Wing.
Over two-thirds, 19 of the 27 companies, received government contracts since fiscal year 2021, totaling over $338 billion. At least 16 out of 27 are also either facing federal enforcement actions and/or have had them suspended by the Trump administration.
“These giant corporations aren’t funding the Trump ballroom fiasco out of the goodness of their hearts. They have massive interests before the federal government, and they hope to curry favor with, and receive favorable treatment from, the Trump administration,” said Public Citizen democracy advocate Jon Golinger, an author of the report.
By far the biggest monetary beneficiary has been the military contractor Lockheed Martin, which received a $43.8 billion in new or expanded contract funding over the past six months after it pledged $10 million to fund the dance hall last fall.
Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting company that serves military and intelligence agencies and pledged at least $5 million to the project, received $4 billion in contracts over the same period.
Meanwhile, Palantir—the data-mining surveillance giant with deep ties to the Trump administration—reaped over $1 billion in contracts after giving its own $5 million donation.
"Millions to fund Trump’s bizarre fever dreams are nothing compared to the billions they’re getting back in contracts and favorable government enforcement decisions," Golinger said. "The American people are paying the price.”
Other ballroom benefactors that have brought in more than $100 million worth of contracts over the past six months include Microsoft, Amazon, HP, and Caterpillar, while T-Mobile, Google, NextEra Energy, and Comcast have all brought in more than $10 million.
Public Citizen noted that while the White House has publicized some of the ballroom donors and others have been revealed by news organizations, not all of the companies that have contributed to the project are publicly known, since the secret funding agreement obtained by the group through a Freedom of Information Act request allows their identities to remain private.
In a statement to The Washington Post, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle suggested that critics should be grateful that Trump was soliciting donations from the wealthy for this very important undertaking.
“The same critics who are alleging fake conflicts of interest would also complain if American taxpayers were footing the bill for these long-overdue renovations,” he said, ignoring the fact that Trump has previously pressured Republicans in Congress to appropriate hundreds of millions in taxpayer funding to secure the ballroom.
Ingle added that “the donors for the White House ballroom project represent 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.”
But several Democratic members of Congress have pointed to it as evidence of Trump selling out the government "to the highest bidder."
“Corporations wrote big checks to build Trump’s golden ballroom,” said Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.). “Now they’re receiving billions of dollars in kickbacks—paid for by your tax dollars.”
“Wild coincidence or taxpayer-funded corruption?” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “You be the judge.”
Rep. Mike Levin (D-Calif.) said that “the part that should make your blood boil” is the fact that many of the companies identified in the report “were facing federal enforcement actions, antitrust reviews, labor cases, [or] securities charges.”
"Many of those cases have been quietly dropped or scaled back since Trump took office. You write a check, your legal problems disappear," Levin said. "That’s not a coincidence."
“You cannot afford to donate to Trump’s ballroom, so he does nothing to improve the quality of your life,” said Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). “But for those who can, there are billions in government contracts.”
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Citing Shady Stock Trades, Warren Asks Bessent If SEC Should 'Be Knocking on President Trump's Door'
"Instead of draining the swamp, what Donald Trump is doing is he is enriching himself by taking advantage of his position," said Sen. Elizabeth Warren. "That is not public service."
Jun 03, 2026
US Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Wednesday pressed Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on the suspiciously timed trading activity of President Donald Trump, pointing specifically to a large purchase of Nvidia stock just days before his administration approved a sale of the tech giant's chips to China.
During a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Warren (D-Mass.) asked Bessent—who has criticized lawmakers for trading stocks—whether he would be willing to hold his boss to the same standard. Last year, Bessent said that if any private citizen traded like members of Congress, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "would be knocking on their door."
"Should the SEC be knocking on President Trump's door?" Warren asked Bessent, who responded that the Massachusetts Democrat and her congressional colleagues should "lead by example."
"I would like to see the president of the United States lead by example," replied Warren, who supports a ban on congressional stock trading and does not own or trade stocks in individual companies. "Instead of draining the swamp, what Donald Trump is doing is he is enriching himself by taking advantage of his position. That is not public service. He's the one who should lead by example."
Watch the exchange:
Financial disclosures released last month show Trump made more than 3,600 trades during the first three months of 2026, purchasing shares in some companies that his administration is tasked with regulating.
"Many of these trades coincided with favorable regulatory decisions," NOTUS reported. "Trump purchased $1 million to $5 million worth of Nvidia stock on February 10, only a week before Nvidia announced a major computer processing power deal with AI and social media giant Meta. Trump previously purchased $500,000 to $1 million worth of Nvidia stock on January 6, a week before the Commerce Department officially approved the sale of some Nvidia chips to China."
In a video response response to the disclosures, Warren asked: "Was this insider trading? And what else is Trump doing to boost his own stock?"
"The American people deserve to know," said Warren. "What Trump is doing should be illegal. It's long past time that we ban the president and every single lawmaker in this country from trading in stocks. We need to end this corruption now."
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'Harmful to American Workers': Warren, Sanders Lead Charge Against Trump Crypto Scheme for 401Ks
“This would strip long-held investor protections from retirement savers and encourage the use of more risky, complex, and expensive investments."
Jun 02, 2026
Two progressive US senators are leading the charge against a new Trump administration scheme that would allow Americans' retirement funds to invest in cryptocurrencies.
As reported by The Guardian on Tuesday, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), along with Rep. Bobby Scott (D-Va.), sent a letter to the US Department of Labor (DOL) warning against enacting a proposed rule change that would allow 401(k) investments to include crypto.
Cryptocurrencies have long proven to be volatile assets that have been involved in multiple fraud schemes, which the FBI estimates cost Americans more than $20 billion in 2025 alone.
“This would strip long-held investor protections from retirement savers and encourage the use of more risky, complex, and expensive investments,” states the letter. “The proposed rule is harmful to American workers.”
Offering an example of the dangers of investing in crypto, the letter cites President Donald Trump's personal meme coin, whose value has cratered since its peak in January 2025.
The push to let 401(k)s invest in crypto has also drawn criticism from Americans for Financial Reform (AFR), which on Monday released a white paper outlining how the plan would put Americans' retirement savings at risk while also serving as a boon to the private equity industry.
Oscar Valdés Viera, senior policy analyst for private equity and capital markets at AFR, accused the DOL of handing over US retirement savings to "the worst Wall Street predators and crypto scammers."
"This proposal would use 401(k)s to bail out a struggling industry and advance the administration’s push to embed crypto deeper into the financial system," Valdés Viera explained. "Driving workers into the arms of private equity firms and crypto insiders would let the president’s Wall Street and crypto cronies pocket billions at the expense of families’ retirement security."
Democracy Defenders Fund (DDF) last week noted that Trump and his family, who have major ties to the cryptocurrency industry, would stand to personally profit from the DOL's proposed rule change.
"President Trump stands to benefit if ordinary people can use their employer-sponsored retirement plans to invest in crypto," said Virginia Canter, chief counsel and director of ethics and anti-corruption at DDF. "The administration claims the proposed rule would 'relieve regulatory burdens,' but it looks more like self-dealing."
In addition to allowing 401(k)s to invest in cryptocurrencies, the proposed DOL rule change would also allow them to invest in private credit assets, which are typically loans negotiated with non-bank lenders.
Benjamin Schiffrin, director of securities policy for Better Markets, said on Tuesday that letting 401(k)s invest in these assets would be a similarly risky bet to letting them invest in crypto.
"This is exactly the wrong approach at the wrong time," said Schiffrin. "There could hardly be a proposal more dangerous to Americans’ retirement security. Investors already in private credit are currently running for the exits. DOL’s proposal means that one day millions of Americans with 401(k)s may have to do the same."
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