Trump attracts America’s billionaires to bankroll policies and projects

President Trump loves billionaires, and they seemingly love him, too.

America’s wealthiest have all but lined up to fund the president’s pet projects and policy ideas on a level that surpasses any other president.

Billionaires signed on to help fund Mr. Trump’s whopping 90,000-square-foot ballroom, fund military salaries and keep campaign promises.

The president himself is a billionaire, which White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called a “very well-established fact,” and said it could even be the reason he was elected in 2024.

“Actually, I think it’s one of the many reasons they reelected him back to this office, because he’s a businessman who understands the economy and knows how to fix it, and he’s doing it right now, just like he did in his first term,” she told reporters at a briefing last week.

Questions persist about the legality of billionaires’ financing government policy.

Still, Georgetown Law School professor David Super said he would be “hard-pressed to name a president who didn’t spend more time with the affluent than they did with ordinary people, Democratic or Republican.”

“The fact that he’s surrounding himself with billionaires, by itself, isn’t a problem,” Mr. Super said. “The question is whether laws or constitutional provisions are being crossed, and having billionaires pick up public functions or change public property, such as the White House or some other public lands, those would be concerning, and obviously anything that enriches the president, directly or indirectly, would run afoul of the Emoluments Clause in the Constitution.”

The Emoluments Clause prohibits federal officials, including the president, from accepting gifts, money or benefits without Congress’ approval.

Some of the donations from billionaires are set for the public, like the founder and CEO of Dell Technologies, Michael Dell, who made a $6.25 billion donation to fund so-called Trump accounts. It marked one of the largest philanthropic donations ever to go directly to Americans, and 25 million children will have $250 in an investment account to jumpstart their futures.

His donation, which goes directly to the Treasury, was a part of a bigger idea from the Trump administration created in the Big Beautiful Bill Act. Under the program, any child born between 2025 and 2028 will automatically receive an account with $1,000 from the government. Mr. Dell’s money is earmarked for children up to 10 who live in zip codes with median household incomes below $150,000.

He also called on others to follow in his footsteps and donate to the Trump Accounts.

“You have to look at the specifics, and his spending time with billionaires is not a problem,” Mr. Super said. “He’s encouraging billionaires to donate to things that he thinks would make the country better, such as the Trump Accounts. I don’t see a problem there either.”

Some 37 individuals and corporations, including Apple, Amazon, Google, the Winklevoss brothers, and the Lutnick family, donated over $350 million to Mr. Trump’s planned massive ballroom at the White House. While taxpayers didn’t have to carry the expense of the expansion, red flags have been raised over whether it was a quid pro quo.

Richard Painter, a law professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and former chief White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said who is on the ballroom donor list could be concerning, since it includes defense contractors such as Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton and Palantir Technologies.

“I think the ballroom is the biggest concern, because he really wanted the ballroom and he didn’t want to get caught using taxpayer money for it,” Mr. Painter said. “Now, with this ballroom getting all these donors who are military contractors, it gives the impression that they’re going to get access to military contracts in return.”

Some billionaires have called attention to that exact situation – JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said his company would not be donating money because “we have to be very careful about how anything is perceived.”

“So, we’re quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that,” Mr. Dimon said on CNN.

Democrats have also questioned the ballroom donations, saying the tech giants that donated could get favorable treatment.

GOP and Trump mega donor Timothy Mellon donated a whopping $130 million to help pay troops during the government shutdown in October. The donation was anonymous, but it was later revealed to be from the Mellon banking heir.

The military can receive donations, but legal experts have said the money for the troops’ salaries in particular likely violated the Anti-Deficiency Act, which prohibits federal agencies from obligating or expending federal funds in advance or in excess of an appropriation.

Mr. Super said these billionaire donors don’t need to be vetted “unless it comes with strings.”

“Once you start talking about strings, then you may be violating a host of laws. But if they are genuinely giving money to activities that Congress had said can receive donations, or if they’re giving to activities that are harmonious with the government but separate from it, then, no [problem],” he said. “There’s a long history of very bad people funding very good things.”

Mr. Trump’s 250th-anniversary Army parade on his birthday in June also featured a whole list of donors like Palantir, Coinbase, Oracle, among others.

“The billionaires are trying to get influence,” said Mr. Painter. “And the military parade is a government function, and we have laws that prohibit private government agencies from just getting donations from billionaires.”

UFC President Dana White helped sponsor the parade, too, in a personal capacity, and will be back this year for a fight on the White House’s south lawn to mark America’s 250th birthday.