As confirmed on Thursday by CNBC, technology giants NVIDIA and Cisco have pledged to donate millions of dollars to the renovation project of President Donald Trump's White House banquet hall.
According to a report by The Washington Post, NVIDIA and Apple each pledged to donate $25 million. These donations are among the largest amounts on the list, which totals over $330 million.
A spokesperson for NVIDIA said to CNBC: "As an American company, our support for the United States is of paramount importance to us, and it is independent of any commercial interests."
"We are proud to donate to a non-partisan trust fund that serves all Americans, and we have openly stated this since the time of our donation."
According to The Washington Post, Amazon, Palantir, ServiceNow, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft also made donations in the millions of dollars. Microsoft and Meta refused to comment on this report. Cisco confirmed that its donation was 5 million dollars.
The Washington Post reported that Amazon, Apple, HP, Micron, Palantir, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Vast Space were all listed as major donors in the report, but these companies did not immediately respond to requests for comments.
The Washington Post reported that these banquet hall donations were made through a non-profit trust fund, and the donors received commitment forms to donate to “Donald J . Trump Ballroom”.
Members of parliament and experts have raised doubts about the donations to this project on multiple occasions and have requested information about private donors. Some people are also concerned about the potential impact of these commitments on policy decisions or the awarding of federal contracts.
Tech leaders largely support Trump's pro-business, lenient anti-monopoly and regulatory approach, and some companies have secured contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars through artificial intelligence infrastructure and defense deals during his second term.
Meta Technology leaders such as CEO Mark Zuckerberg and NVIDIA's CEO Jensen Huang frequently attend state dinners and meetings in Washington, and they were also key figures at the White House's Artificial Intelligence Luncheon on September 29th.
Documents obtained by The Washington Post show that as of late September, there were 67 donations of over $10,000 each.
For the full report, see The Washington Post.
