President Donald Trump has made it clear that he wants the legacy he leaves in the White House to be one of renovation. He began making changes to the historic building immediately upon entering office, with the Oval Office now practically dripping in gold-rimmed portraits and the Rose Garden now paved with stone and adorned with umbrellas. His latest—and most audacious—change, though, has just begun—one that will tear down a wing of the White House and potentially almost double the footprint of the existing structure, with the help of major U.S. businesses and some of the wealthiest individuals in the nation.
Demolition started Monday at the White House’s East Wing to make way for Trump’s planned $250 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, as the Administration begins to put to use the millions of dollars of private donations they have said will pay for the remodeling of “the People’s House.” A senior Administration official told the New York Times that the full East Wing was expected to be torn down by this weekend.
Trump said the new ballroom, set to be developed as an extension of the East Room, could hold close to 1,000 people, and will alleviate space limitations at state dinners and events.
When the plans were unveiled by the White House in July, the Trump Administration said the money for the project would not come from public funds. But though it promised to release information on which individuals and corporations have pledged or donated funds for the construction, it has yet to do so.
Trump confirmed on Monday that some of the money for the ballroom would come from his personal funds. Via his social media company and real estate ventures, the President is believed to be worth more than $7 billion, according to Forbes. It is also unclear, however, how much money he is putting toward the endeavor.
“I am honored to be the first President to finally get this much-needed project underway — with zero cost to the American Taxpayer!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “The White House Ballroom is being privately funded by many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and yours truly.
Though the complete list of donors has not been shared, we do have some information about the other parties that are contributing to the project. Here’s what to know.
Which companies are contributing money?
The White House invited some of the donors to an East Room dinner last week, reportedly including representatives from OpenAI, Microsoft, Coinbase, Palantir, Lockheed Martin, Amazon and Google. Individual donors such as oil and gas mogul Harold Hamm, Blackstone CEO Steve Schwarzman and bitcoin billionaires the Winklevoss twins were also reported to be in attendance.
TIME has reached out to the companies for comment.
The dinner was billed to “Establish the Magnificent White House Ballroom,” according to the Wall Street Journal, which obtained a copy of the invitation. The outlet also reported that Trump has held meetings at the White House and at his club in Virginia about raising money for the project.
Over $20 million is set to come from YouTube’s settlement of a 2021 lawsuit filed by Trump over his suspension of his account following the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. Of the $24.5 million to be paid in the settlement, it specifies that $22 million will go toward the development of a White House ballroom.
Donor funding raises ethics alarms
Many of the donors or potential donors who reportedly attended the dinner have done “significant” business with the federal government, says Columbia professor of law Richard Briffault. And that, he says, raises ethical concerns.
Briffault says it is not unprecedented for the government to look to private philanthropy to fund federal projects. It’s Trump’s personal involvement in the project and his personal solicitation of large amounts of funds from a small number of companies, he says, that make this case distinctive.
“The President is making this his vanity project, and then went to the point of inviting people to the White House in order to solicit their contribution, so he is personally engaged in raising the money,” Briffault tells TIME.
This solicitation, Briffault says, raises concerns about what these companies will be receiving in return from the federal government—or from Trump himself—particularly since many of them have massive contracts with the government.
“I doubt it’s a literal quid-pro-quo, but it’s probably more like ‘if you give this, I will look favorably upon you.’ Or maybe more like, ‘if you don’t give this, after you’ve been asked, I won’t [look favorably upon you],” he said. “It’s greasing the system by making contributions, and in some ways, his leaning on them for contributions is quasi-coercive.”
Noah Bookbinder, CEO and President of ethics watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), says it’s notable that unless there is an exact quid-pro-quo exchange, what Trump’s doing is not illegal. Still, he feels it is “extraordinarily unusual, deeply disturbing and does have tremendous ethics implications,” especially when put in the context of what Trump has said publicly about how he does business.
“Donald Trump has made very clear over the years that he does appreciate people paying tribute to him, and he does tend to do things that benefit those people,” Bookbinder says. “But again, companies shouldn’t feel pressure to placate the president in order to protect their business interests, and you shouldn’t have the President making policy decisions to bring in money for things that he wants.”
Briffault connects the situation to Trump’s controversial acceptance of a Qatari luxury jet to use as Air Force One. Like in the case of that decision, Trump will not personally receive the money being contributed for the ballroom project, “but it’s going to certainly benefit him for the entire time he’s in the White House.”
Beyond the concerns about the funding, there have been several raised regarding the construction of the ballroom—both architecturally and bureaucratically. The construction is moving ahead without the sign-off of the National Capital Planning Commission, the executive branch agency which oversees construction and major renovations to government buildings in the region. In response to criticisms, Will Scharf, who was appointed by Trump to head the commission, says it only needs to vet rebuilding, not demolition work.
Though the White House has gone through many renovations over the years, the ballroom project has elicited concerns from architectural societies. The Society of Architectural Historians urged that “such a significant change to a historic building of this import should follow a rigorous and deliberate design and review process.”
“While we recognize that the White House is a building with evolving needs, and that it has undergone various exterior and interior modifications since construction began in 1792, the proposed ballroom will be the first major change to its exterior appearance in the last 83 years (since the East Wing in its current form was built in 1942),” the group’s statement continued.
Bookbinder contends there would have been more adherence to “traditions and procedures” that “protect American history” during previous Administrations, including getting the approval of the appropriate congressional or executive bodies.
“You’re seeing a bypassing of the regular ways of doing things in ways that really could endanger the interests of the American people,” he says.
