Abstract:
Tech giants Nvidia and Cisco have pledged millions of dollars to renovate President Donald Trump's White House ballroom. Nvidia and Apple each pledged to donate US$25 million to the project, which is among the highest donations on the list; the total project donations have exceeded US$330 million.
A spokesman for Nvidia said: "As an American company, our support of the United States is vital and independent of any commercial interests. We are honored to donate to a nonpartisan trust fund that serves all Americans, and we have made this position public since the donation was made."
The media said Amazon, Palantir, ServiceNow, Meta and Microsoft also made millions of dollars in donations. Microsoft and Meta declined to comment on the report, while Cisco and ServiceNow confirmed donations of $5 million each.
ServiceNow issued a statement saying: "Our company's business with the U.S. government and our donations to any charity projects are independent and unrelated to each other. Any attempt to link the two things is completely untrue."
Amazon, Apple, HP, Micron, Palantir, Salesforce and Vast Space, which were listed as major donors in the report, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Media reports that donations for the ballroom project are received through a non-profit trust fund, and donors will receive a letter of commitment to donate to the "Donald J. Trump Ballroom."
Many members of Congress and experts have repeatedly questioned donations to the project and requested information about private donors. Some are concerned about the potential impact such donations could have on policymaking and the awarding of federal government contracts.
Most technology industry executives support Trump's pro-business, loose antitrust and regulatory ideas. During his second term, some companies have won hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts through AI infrastructure and defense business.
Tech giant executives such as Meta CEO Zuckerberg and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang frequently attend state banquets and various meetings in Washington. They were also core participants at the White House AI Luncheon on September 29.
Documents obtained by the media show that as of late September, there were 67 individual donations exceeding US$10,000.
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Trump’s White House banquet hall donation list exposed: Apple and Nvidia each receive $25 million. Trump himself did not appear
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