Sadly, Apple has long kowtowed to the Trump administration (see here and here and here). And it may be worse than I’d thought.
Apple pledged US$25 million for Trump’s White House ballroom, according to a list of donors obtained by The Washington Post (a subscription is required to read the article).
“Apple, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Google, Coinbase, Comcast and Meta are just some of the major companies who have made donations to build President Donald Trump’s proposed 90,000-square-foot ballroom, according to the White House,” the article said.
According to WSJ — listing numbers from an internal spreadsheet the publication obtained — Apple, Nvidia, the Adelson Family Foundation, and the Charlie Ergen household and donor-advised fund each pledged $25 million, collectively accounting for roughly 30% of the $333 million in reported contributions. Other donations associated with the tech sector reportedly include:
- Google via John P. Coale Esq. Trust: $22 million (through settlement funds from Trump’s lawsuit against YouTube)
- Microsoft: $10 million
- Palantir: $10 million
- Amazon: $5 million
- Meta: $5 million
- HP: $2.5 million
- Micron: $2.5 million
- Salesforce: $2 million (with another $1 million from Benioff DAF)
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued the Trump administration to halt the ballroom’s construction, but the timid Supreme Court allowed construction to go forward for now. The Trump administration argued in court that pausing the project could pose a threat to national security.
The New York Intelligencer described the ballroom and bunker on September 4 as an $800 million project.
