Editor's Note: This head has been updated.
The Trump transition team made a promise last year to disclose the names of their donors to the public. That still has not happened, the New York Times reported on Thursday.
The transition team said in November, “donors to the transition will be disclosed to the public.”
“Preparing to take power and fill thousands of federal jobs is a monthslong project that can cost tens of millions of dollars,” writes reporter Ken Bensinger. “Previous presidents, including Mr. Trump himself in 2017, used private contributions as well as federal money to foot the bill.”
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In the past, presidents have made good on agreements to disclose donors within 30 days of taking office. The agreements were made in exchange for millions in federal funding. But Trump refused public funds, so he never made that exact promise. The transition team said it wanted to avoid public funds in order to “save taxpayers’ hard-earned money.” They promised to “not accept foreign donations.” It was unclear whether it would continue the $5,000 contribution limit.
"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," Bensinger writes.
A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, which is involved with the transitions, told the Times, “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 commitment that previous presidents have made.
Experts said that this lack of accountability leaves the public in the dark as to who is trying to curry favor with the president.
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“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,” Max Stier, the president of the nonpartisan nonprofit Partnership for Public Service, told the Times. “They made a promise. They owe it to the public to fulfill that.”
In Trump’s transition following the 2016 election, the transition team said they received $2.4 million in federal funds. They also said they received $6.5 million from 3,000 private donors. The contributions were limited to $5,000.
“Far less is known about the financing of the most recent Trump transition,” Bensinger writes. “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’s inaugural committee did disclose its private donations, which totaled a record, more than $170 million as of January. It has not yet filed with the Federal Election Commission, but some donors have revealed that they contributed.
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“Many of those entities have government contracts or are engaged in legal cases involving federal agencies,” Bensinger writes.
“Among them are the technology companies Amazon, Meta, Google and Microsoft, each of which donated $1 million,” he continues. “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.”