Who Is Paying for Trump’s $250 Million Ballroom—and What They Might Get in Return

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 has torn down a wing of the White House and will 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.

On Thursday, two excavators could be seen from the North Lawn continuing to dig during the day, while the sounds of machinery churning and beeping could be heard from the West Wing. No signs of the East Wing remained.

Demolition of the wing began Monday to make way for Trump’s planned $250 million, 90,000-square-foot ballroom, which will put to use the millions of dollars of private donations the Administration has said will pay for the remodeling of “the People’s House.”

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.

“It’s going to be much more stable, strong, secure, and beautiful than ever,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a press briefing Thursday of the “Big, Beautiful Ballroom,” which she said would be given an official name that would be announced by the President himself.

She added there are no other construction projects in the works.

Read more: A Eulogy For the White House’s East Wing

When the plans for the ballroom were unveiled by the White House in July, the Trump Administration said the money for the project would not come from public funds. And now, the White House has released a list of the individuals and corporations that are donating to pay for its construction.

Here’s what to know.

Which companies are contributing money?

The White House's list, provided to TIME on Thursday, includes these corporate and individual donors:

Exactly how much money each donor is putting toward the endeavor is not yet clear.

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. YouTube is owned by Google, which is among the listed donors.

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 contributing to the project..

“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.

Leavitt said during the briefing on Thursday that the project would not affect taxpayers.

Donor funding raises ethics alarms

The White House invited some of the donors to an East Room dinner last week, including representatives of several major companies as well as wealthy individuals.

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.

Many of the donors who attended the dinner have done “significant” business with the federal government, Columbia professor of law Richard Briffault observes. 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.

'A significant change to a historic building'

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.

The White House has repeatedly highlighted the construction work done on the White House, and particularly the East Wing, under past presidents. Martha Kumar, an American political scientist and historian, noted that Trump’s project differs from past changes to the building, however.

“It’s not so much a renovation as it is a new construction,” she tells TIME, following Leavitt's briefing.

She referenced past construction efforts that were “structural” and necessary to preserve the integrity of the White House, such as those made after the White House was burned in 1814 and to address flooring and electrical components of the building in the 1940s and '50s.

“Those are very different than creating a ballroom, which is an elective construction,” she says.

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.