Trump announced White House ballroom expansion, demolishing historic East Wing and replacing it with 89,000 sq ft facility funded entirely by private corporate donors. Cost estimates ballooned from initial $200 million to $300 million and ultimately $400 million. Construction continued during October 2025 federal government shutdown while federal workers went unpaid. Major donors include tech giants (Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta), defense contractors (Lockheed Martin: $10M+), and companies with massive government contracts.
White House released donor list in October 2025 but refused to disclose individual donation amounts. Alphabet pledged $22 million of a settlement. Ethics watchdogs warned privately funding the project gives wealthy donors unfair access to the president.
In March 2026, Trump revealed aboard Air Force One that the military is building a “massive complex” underneath the ballroom. Trump described the ballroom as essentially a “shed” — a shield for the underground military installation. The WWII-era bomb shelter beneath the East Wing (the Presidential Emergency Operations Center) was demolished in October 2025 to make way. Trump complained that a “stupid lawsuit” by the National Trust for Historic Preservation forced him to disclose “this heretofore top secret fact.” The donor-funded ballroom is a cover story for a taxpayer-funded underground bunker — with bulletproof glass windows and a drone-proof roof. Federal Judge Richard J. Leon called the East Wing demolition “brazen.”
On March 31, 2026, Judge Leon (a George W. Bush appointee) granted a preliminary injunction that blocked above-ground construction while allowing underground work and anything “strictly necessary” for security. His ruling was scathing: “The President of the United States is the steward of the White House for future generations of First Families. He is not, however, the owner!” He found the National Trust is “likely to succeed on the merits” and ruled that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims to have.” He described the arrangement, routed through the National Park Service, as a “Rube Goldberg contraption” designed to escape the limits Congress has imposed on the use of federal property, Reason reported. He ordered: “Unless and until Congress blesses this project through statutory authorization, construction has to stop!” Over 99% of 35,000+ public comments opposed the project. Trump called the National Trust “a Radical Left Group of Lunatics.”
In August 2026, Trump promised in the Oval Office to name more donors: “I'll give you names. In fact, I wanted to put them out today, but we got a little busy.” As of mid-September, NBC News reported, no donors had been added to the initial list of 37 released in October 2025, though Nvidia and Vantive Healthcare have acknowledged their own donations. The administration says the roughly $400 million project is about 65 percent complete and expected by summer 2028. Trump said last month that people opposing the ballroom “are very disloyal to our country, very, very disloyal to our country.”
Correction (September 24, 2026): an earlier version of this entry quoted Judge Leon as calling the donor funding a “Rube Goldberg machine” and an “end run” around congressional appropriations. As Reason reported it, he described the arrangement as a “Rube Goldberg contraption”; “end run” was Reason's description, not the judge's. His finding that “no statute comes close to giving the President the authority he claims” had also been cut short; the sentence ends “to have.” The entry now cites reports of the March 31 ruling itself for his quoted findings.
Update (September 25, 2026): the injunction never took effect. The D.C. Circuit paused it, then upheld it 2-1 on August 7; Chief Justice Roberts issued a temporary stay on August 21; and on August 31 the Supreme Court, 5-4, stayed it on the ground that the Trust likely lacks standing, without deciding whether the project is legal. Roberts, dissenting with the three liberal justices, wrote that the construction “is likely unlawful” (see Over the Chief Justice's Dissent, the Supreme Court Lets Trump Keep Building His Ballroom Without Deciding Whether It Is Legal). Correction: an earlier version of this entry said Leon's injunction halted all construction; it blocked above-ground construction and allowed underground work, as the Supreme Court's order describes it.
Related entries: Five Media and Tech Companies Paid $86.5 Million to Settle Trump Lawsuits, Most of It to His Library Foundation and His Ballroom.