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Who Paid for Trump’s Transition to Power? The Donors Are Still Unknown.
After six weeks in office, President Trump has not disclosed the names of the donors who paid for his transition planning, despite a public pledge to do so.
Preparing to take power and fill thousands of federal jobs is a monthslong project that can cost tens of millions of dollars. Previous presidents, including Mr. Trump himself in 2017, used private contributions as well as federal money to foot the bill.
Those presidents made public the names of donors and their contributions within 30 days of taking office, as required under agreements they had signed with the departing administration.
The agreements offered the transition teams millions of dollars in federal funding and a variety of services, such as security, office space and the use of government servers, in exchange for following strict rules on fund-raising, including the disclosure obligation.
Mr. Trump’s 2024 transition team declined to sign such an agreement, stating in late November that it wanted to “save taxpayers’ hard-earned money” by forgoing federal support and financing its operations privately. At the same time, it promised that “donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public” and volunteered that it would “not accept foreign donations.” It did not state whether it would limit individual contributions to $5,000, as previous administrations had.
No disclosures about that financing have been made by the Trump transition, and neither it nor administration officials have given indications of a timeline for releasing that information.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, did not respond to requests for comment.
The leaders of the Trump transition were Howard Lutnick, now the commerce secretary, and Linda McMahon, who was confirmed Monday as the education secretary. Neither Mr. Lutnick nor Ms. McMahon responded to requests for comment.
A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, which works closely with presidential transitions, said in a statement that the “the Trump-Vance Transition Team is not required to publicly disclose transition-related donations since they did not accept the services and funds outlined in” the memorandum of understanding that the agency offered the transition last fall.
Experts on government accountability noted that without a public accounting of donors, it was exceedingly difficult to know whether individuals or corporations had tried to buy influence with the new administration behind closed doors.
“Transparency on the question of private interests influencing public power is really fundamental to the health of our system, and we’re seeing that break down in very big ways,” said Max Stier, the president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that promotes best practices in the federal government. “They made a promise. They owe it to the public to fulfill that.”
Mr. Trump’s previous transition, after the 2016 election, had roughly 120 employees, used government office space and email servers and received $2.4 million in federal funds. In exchange, it disclosed that more than 3,000 people, companies and advocacy organizations donated $6.5 million to the effort, with those contributions capped at $5,000 apiece, as required by the G.S.A. agreement.
Far less is known about the financing of the most recent Trump transition. Operating largely out of private offices in West Palm Beach, Fla., and eschewing government servers, the transition appears to have heavily involved the billionaire Elon Musk — who spent at least $288 million to help elect Mr. Trump and now leads the so-called Department of Government Efficiency — as well as a number of other technology industry executives.
Trump Vance 2025 Transition Inc., as the transition is formally known, was registered in Florida as a “dark money” nonprofit that does not have to disclose its donors to the Internal Revenue Service. The funds cannot be used to enrich the transition’s officers, but they can be directed to support political candidates or to pay Mr. Trump’s businesses for services provided.
Mr. Trump’s post-election fund-raising was not limited to the transition. His inaugural committee, which is a separate entity, brought in more than $170 million in private donations as of early January, a record.
Unlike the transition, the inaugural committee is legally required to report donations to the Federal Election Commission. Although the inaugural committee has not yet filed a report with that regulator, a number of high-profile donors have revealed their contributions. Many of those entities have government contracts or are engaged in legal cases involving federal agencies.
Among them are the technology companies Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, each of which donated $1 million. Kraken, a cryptocurrency exchange that was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2023, put in $1 million as well. On Monday, the S.E.C. said it was dropping the case voluntarily. Last week, it dismissed a suit against another cryptocurrency exchange, Coinbase, which also donated $1 million to Mr. Trump’s inauguration.
David A. Fahrenthold contributed reporting.
new video loaded: Singer D4vd Is Charged With Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
transcript
transcript
Singer D4vd Is Charged With Murder of Celeste Rivas Hernandez
The musician D4vd was charged with murder on Monday, seven months after the police said that the body of a teenage girl, Celeste Rivas Hernandez, had been found in the trunk of his Tesla. D4vd, whose real name is David Burke, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
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“On April 23, 2025, as has been alleged by the complaint, Celeste, a 14-year-old at that time, went to Mr. Burke’s house in the Hollywood Hills. She was never heard from again.” “These charges include the most serious charges that a D.A.‘s office can bring. That is first-degree murder with special circumstances. The special circumstances being lying in wait, committing this crime for financial gain or murdering a witness in an investigation. These special circumstances carry with it, along with the first-degree murder charge, a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, or the death penalty.” “We believe the actual evidence will show David Burke did not murder Celeste Revis Hernandez nor was he the cause of her death.”
By Jackeline Luna
April 20, 2026
In this photo illustration, The Onion website is displayed on a computer screen, showing a satirical story titled Here’s Why I Decided To Buy ‘InfoWars’, on November 14, 2024 in Pasadena, California.
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The satirical website, The Onion, has a new deal to take over Infowars, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s far-right media company. If approved by a Texas judge, the deal would take away his Infowars microphone, and allow The Onion to resume its plans to turn the website into a parody of itself.
Families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, who sued Jones for defamation, want the sale to happen. They’re still waiting to collect on the nearly $1.3 billion judgement they won against Jones for spreading lies that they faked the deaths of their children in order to boost support for gun control. That prompted Jones’s followers to harass and threaten the families for years.
The families are also eager to take away Jones’s platform for spewing such conspiracy theories. The deal not only would divorce Jones from his Infowars brand, but it would turn the platform against him by allowing The Onion to mock his kind of conspiracy mongering and advocate for gun control.
The families “took on Alex Jones to stop him from inflicting the same harm on others” by using “his corrupt business platform to torment and harass them for profit,” said Chris Mattei, one of the attorneys for the families. “When Infowars finally goes dark, the machinery of lies that Jones built will become a force for social good, thanks to the families’ courage and The Onion’s vision, persistence and stewardship.”
A mourner visits the Sandy Hook Permanent Memorial on the 10th anniversary of the school shooting on Dec.14, 2022 in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty-six people were shot and killed, including 20 first graders and 6 educators, in one of the deadliest elementary school shootings in U.S. history.
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For its part The Onion called it a “significant step in an effort to transform one of the internet’s more notorious misinformation platforms into a new comedy network for satire.” The company says it could announce its new rollout of Infowars in a matter of weeks if the judge approves the deal.
“Eight years, almost to the day, after the Sandy Hook parents first filed suit against Alex Jones, they’ll finally get some justice, and even some money,” said Ben Collins, CEO of The Onion. “This is a chance to make something genuinely new out of a very broken piece of media history.”
On its website Monday, The Onion posted a satirical message from the fictional CEO of its parent company, Global Tetrahedron, “Bryce P. Tetraeder,” stating a “dream is finally coming true.”
Jones’s posted on X Monday that “The Onion Has Fraudulently Claimed AGAIN That It Owns Infowars!!!” adding that “The Democrat Party Disinformation Publication Is Publicly Bragging About Its Plan To Silence Alex Jones’ Infowars And Then Steal & Misrepresent His Identity!”
On a podcast in March, Jones alluded to the impending demise of Infowars, saying, “We’re getting shut down. We beat so many attacks. But finally, we’re shutting down like the middle of next month,” before insisting, “We’re going to be fine.”
Jones suggested Monday he would appeal any court decision to approve the leasing deal. And even if he loses control of Infowars, Jones could continue to broadcast from another studio, under another name.
Jones’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.
More than a year ago, a federal bankruptcy judge rejected The Onion’s first attempt to buy Infowars through a bankruptcy auction, saying the process was flawed. Since then, the bankruptcy court clarified that because Infowars’ parent company, Free Speech Systems, is not itself in bankruptcy, its property should be handled instead by a Texas state receiver. That cleared the way for the new pending deal to lease Infowars to The Onion, with the hope that a future sale could be approved.
In papers filed in state court, the Texas receiver said he “determined that licensing the Intellectual Property is in the best interest of the receivership estate.”
The deal calls for The Onion to pay $81,000 a month to license the Infowars.com domain and brand name, which the receiver says will “cover carrying costs to preserve and protect the assets of the receivership estate” until an appeal filed by Jones is decided and the path is cleared for a sale.
Jones’s personal bankruptcy case is proceeding in federal bankruptcy court, where a trustee continues to sell off Jones’s personal property, including cars, homes, watches and guns, with proceeds intended for the families.
A memorial to massacre victims stands near the former site of Sandy Hook Elementary on Dec. 14, 2013 in Newtown, Connecticut, one year after Adam Lanza shot and killed 20 first graders and six adults at the school.
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US negotiators to head to Pakistan and Iranian cargo ship seized – a recappublished at 00:37 BST 20 April
Tankers in the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday
Here’s a recap of the latest developments.
US negotiators will head to Pakistan on Monday with the intention of holding further talks on ending the war, Trump says – but Iranian state media cites unnamed officials as saying Tehran has “no plans for now to participate”.
The prospect of further high-level negotiations – a White House official says Vice-President JD Vance will attend – comes amid reports of fresh attacks on commercial vessels.
Trump says the navy intercepted and took “custody” of an Iranian tanker attempting to pass through the US blockade, “blowing a hole” in the ship’s engine room in the process.
Earlier, in the same post announcing his representatives would travel for more talks, Trump renewed his threat to destroy Iranian energy sites and bridges if no deal is reached.
Reports in Iranian media over the weekend suggest Iran is continuing to work on plans to potentially apply a toll to ships passing through the strait – although it’s unclear if such a move will be implemented.
Iranian state TV cites unnamed officials as saying that “continuation of the so-called naval blockade, violation of the ceasefire and threatening US rhetoric” are slowing progress in reaching an agreement.
Trump also accused Iran of violating the ceasefire, saying more commercial ships have been attacked by Iran in the Strait of Hormuz.
A UK maritime agency reported two commercial ships came under fire in the strait on Saturday.
Iran’s foreign minister had said on Friday that the strait would be opened – which was shortly followed by Trump saying the US naval blockade of Iranian ports would remain in place until a deal is reached. Iran has since said the strait is closed again.
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