A list obtained by The Washington Post reveals all the major donors to President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project, including previously undisclosed contributors who have benefited from regulatory decisions, government contracts and, in one case, a pardon for a family member.
Tech giants Nvidia and Apple each committed $25 million, the top contribution amount, the list shows. The Adelson family, one of the GOP’s largest donor dynasties, committed that sum as well, as did billionaire Charles Ergen, co-founder and chairman of telecommunications company Dish Network.
Absent from the list is Trump himself, who has said that he is helping to pay for the project. “It’s being paid for a hundred percent by me and some friends of mine,” he said last year, days after demolition began on the old East Wing.
The White House publicly identified 37 people, companies and foundations as donors last October, without revealing the amount of their individual gifts.
The list obtained by The Post, an internal spreadsheet used to track contributions for the fundraising effort, contains the source, date and amount of all 67 donations above $10,000 recorded as of late last month. It shows a total of $333 million from private donors, aligning with the administration’s public statements. Additional records, also internal to the fundraising effort, provide more detail about the donations and indicate that at least $77 million came from donors who requested anonymity.
A real who’s who of powerful interests buying high on American fascism. And another powerful reason to start treating the thing down on January 20, 2029.
Microsoft, Apple, and Nvidia are among the top donors for United States president Donald Trump’s vanity White House ballroom project, according to a new Washington Post report. Apple and Nvidia both donated $25 million, which is the highest donation amount. Microsoft donated $10 million to the ballroom project that Trump said in 2025 that he and “some friends” were paying for, but the president does not appear on the donor list.
The Washington Post wrote that Nvidia made its donation in October 2025 following a deal with Trump to sell microchips in China, which was previously considered a security concern. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang characterized the donation as contributing “in a small way” in October 2025. The Washington Post reported the company wanted the donation to be anonymous.
“As an American company, our support for the United States is paramount, and independent of any business interests,” Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo told The Washington Post in a statement. “We were proud to be able to make a donation to a nonpartisan trust that serves all Americans and have said so publicly since the donation was made.”
Nvidia is valued at $5.5 trillion; its semiconductor chips were originally used to power graphics processing units (GPUs) for powerful gaming setups. Now, its chips are used to drive artificial intelligence.
Many of these contributions to the White House ballroom project were reported last year, but the full amounts were not made public. Other donors include the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Foundation (Isaac Perlmutter is Marvel Entertainment’s former CEO) and defense contractor Lockheed Martin.
After studying computer engineering in the '80s and tinkering on some early games in COBOL, Gray broke into the industry at the age of 35 in 1994 with the launch of GrayDoom, a set of four maps for the then-new Doom that were widely shared on CompuServe and beyond. The work attracted the attention of Q Studios' Nick Newhard, who contracted Gray to work on level design for the late '90s cult classic Blood.
Gray said in a 2016 interview that he assumed the prevalence of cheats in Duke Nukem 3D would mean that "of course, most all of you would be flying around, seeing what you could break, find easter eggs the easy way …bingo! I gave you an easter egg that you had to cheat to find."
Remembering Richard “Levelord” Gray.
In this interview, Richard reflects on the creative freedom he and Allen Blum had while designing the iconic levels of Duke Nukem 3D.
In the years following, his level design work appeared in games ranging from SiN to Quake: The Offering to Half-Life: Opposing Force and Counter-Strike: Condition Zero. "The most important duty you have as a level designer is to bring the player 'into' your level," he said in a 1999 interview for the book Game Design: Secrets of the Sages. "It's not until after this submersion that issues like action, game play, and even the Fun Factor enter the game. The more of your level to which the player can attach himself via familiarity, the stronger the player's sense of 'being there' will be."
Gray also made a brief pivot late in his career to casual games such as the Luxor series after FPS maker Ritual Entertainment was acquired by new parent company MumboJumbo. "It does seem sort of a shock at first, from the outside, for sure," he said of the surprise move in a 2007 interview. "Remember, though, making games is making games, a dream job come true! ... To be honest? ...we’re enjoying the hell out of doing something different than hardcore shooters, and the variations within the casual game market makes us even more enthusiastic!"
Gone but not forgotten
Tributes from friends and colleagues have poured in across the Internet since Gray's death was announced. 3D Realms founder Scott Miller called Gray "a stellar talent" and "a relentless hard worker, a fun teammate, and an overall great human. His levels in Duke Nukem 3D and Sin will live on forever."
Gears of War creator Cliff Bleszinski praised the "sense of place" Gray's levels could create in a game like Duke Nukem 3D. "Few 3D shooters up to that point had it," he wrote. "Instead of a generic hallway you were in an identifiable location. To pull that off with such early/simple tech was a miracle."
I loved the first episode of DN3D but was more drawn in by E2 and E3 that had such distinctive designs. We’re gonna miss you, man. You were one of the best.
Id Software's John Romero remembered Gray as a "great guy" who "was full of life, a gentle soul, and an excellent level designer. He was called 'Levelord' for a reason."
"Richard was, without a doubt, one of the kindest people I’ve ever met in the games industry," Slipgate Ironworks CEO Frederik Schreiber wrote. "Incredibly humble, remarkably intelligent, endlessly creative, and always a pleasure to be around. Despite everything he had accomplished and the enormous influence his work had on my generation of game developers, he never carried himself as anything other than a genuinely good human being."
Do you like horror movies? I feel like most new movies that are coming out are almost all horror movies. But here’s the thing: a horror movie doesn’t have to deal with traditional themes to be terrifying, like re-animated corpses or people on all-sanguineous diets or monkey’s paw-related wish-grantery. Sometimes the horror is less imaginative and just, you know, crappier. Like the grim yet ever-present specter of a future where no one can fix and drive a used car.
This horrific idea was driven home for me when I watched a series – I think still ongoing – of videos from bigshot YouTuber (a title which, I just learned today, has nothing to do with other types of tubers, like yams or cassavas) Rich Rebuilds, who just spent $10,000 to buy one of those Rivian-built Amazon delivery vans.
Now, the van Rich bought may not actually have been part of Amazon’s fleet; in fact, I don’t think it was, because it doesn’t have Amazon livery on the outside and the center of the steering wheel reads “RIVIAN” instead of “AMAZON” like the ones delivered to Amazon seem to have. It’s the same type of van that Amazon uses, though, a Rivian Delivery Van, and these are electric delivery vehicles that start at around $80,000 and go up from there. Maybe $100,000 is a bit of an exaggeration, but not by much, once all is said and done. So getting one for $10,000 would absolutely seem like an interesting deal.
Of course, there’s a catch, because this is reality and everything has a catch. The catch here is that the van doesn’t, you know, move. Ordinarily, this is a pretty significant detriment to a van, or, really, almost any motor vehicle, but Rich felt the gamble could be worth it, because, come on, this thing is practically new! How hard could it be?
The van was marked not for sale, but despite that, somehow Rich managed to buy it, becoming possibly the first private – as in non-commercial – owner of a Rivian Delivery Van ever. It’s also worth noting that this van was in this position because it had been Lemon Law’d, which means that it was so broken from the get-go that the manufacturer had to buy it back. And from there, I guess it was sold to the dealer that Rich bought it from?
Anyway, the sellers of the unsellable van seemed to think it needed a whole new battery pack, but Rich didn’t think so. And it seems he was right! The problem is just that the real issue is, in many ways, worse.
These videos are somewhat long, but I think worth watching, if only to really absorb the full schadenfreude of frustration as they try fix after fix to try and get the van moving. It powers up fine; the battery works, all the displays work, the power doors open and close, all the lights work, but there’s one thing that refuses to cooperate, and it’s enough to transform the whole van from a vehicle into a shed: the parking brake.
For whatever reason, the van’s computers think there’s some kind of fault in the parking brake system, and as a result, the van refuses to go into gear and drive. The whole electric parking brake system was inspected and seems fine, but the software refuses to accept that, and effectively bricks the entire van.
By the end of the video, Rich realizes his only recourse is to try and reach out to Rivian, who will very likely refuse to work on this vehicle, because it was marked as not to be sold. And, sure, he knew the risks when plopping down his ten grand, but the bigger issue here is that this should be an alarming warning for us all, especially those of us who like to buy broken used vehicles and then make them work.
All of these car-resurrections were able to happen because, at least up until this point, cars were very repairable things. You could take a car that hadn’t run in years and years and get it back on the road, and there’s never been a need to reach out to the company that made the car originally – if they still even exist – for anything.
What this attempted Rivian van repair painfully demonstrates is how that situation seems to be coming to an end. When software becomes the dominant driver of how a car works, then you no longer ever really own a car; the car company is just letting you use it, until such use ceases to provide them any benefit.
If this was a UPS delivery van from 1985 or 1992 or even 2019 that Rich bought, he’d have had it running and driving in no time, ready to be converted into a camper or a mobile opium den or a hauler for a dirigible or whatever. All the systems would have been understandable and repairable. Sure, there would potentially be considerable skill and cost and resources of all kinds involved, but it would be possible.
Is it possible to fix this Rivian van at all? 99% of the systems in that van seem to be working fine, but I am not even remotely confident that the thing will ever drive again. Maybe if Rivian agrees to help somehow and use their proprietary diagnostic tools to clear the fault, but that’s a huge if. Clever hackers could likely reverse-engineer what the Rivian computers and software are doing and make a replacement nervous system, but the effort to pull that off would be, well, considerable. Like moon-sized considerable.
All of this makes me deeply uneasy. I don’t want to live in a world where otherwise perfectly repairable used cars and trucks and vans are rendered inert, useless monoliths because of some lines of code I’m not allowed to access. If this is a harbinger for the way things are going to be – and I’m afraid it very much is, as we’ve seen many similar things before – then that does not bode well for the used car market or the world of independent auto repair shops or the ability for people to afford and use used cars, for regular life use or for enthusiasts.
Right to repair is important, and the story of this Rivian delivery van should be a big, loud warning to everyone who cares about repairing their own cars. We can’t let this become the norm.
Maybe he’ll fix it, though! There’s still the possibility of a happy ending here, so I’m going to reserve at least a little dollop of hope that in a future video we’ll see Rich driving this thing past Rivian HQ, flipping a glorious bird.
Yesterday, Citroën unveiled their latest concept car, a re-imagined electric version of the legendary 2CV. My delight gland was significantly excorpulated by what I saw, and I sincerely hope this concept makes it to market close to what was shown (albeit with skirted rear fenders) and for the low price they’re targeting. Now, in what seems to be a company-wide effort to see just how excorpulated my delight gland can be, the company has shown a second 2CV-based concept car, this one a modern re-interpretation of the commercial variant of the 2CV, known as the Fourgonnette.
The original Fourgonnette was introduced in 1951 to meet the growing demand for a small, cheap van or commercial vehicle, much the same reasons why Volkswagen developed their famous Type 2 van. Citroën’s solution to the commercial vehicle problem was typically simple: cut the body off a 2CV after the front doors and graft on a small corrugated shed that looks something like a quonset hut.
The resulting vehicle, which also got a 425cc version of the air-cooled flat-twin in the base car, adding three more horsepower for a mind-scrambling 12 hp, was an incredibly flexible, usable, and affordable workhorse. Businesses all over France and Europe, to the tune of 1.2 million of these ribbed wonders being sold between 1951 and 1978. There were even sort-of station wagon versions with rear side windows and back seats, so you could take the fam out after a hard week of hauling cheese or whatever.
That’s all background so you can have some context around this new version of the Fourgonnette:
As you can see, the design language mirrors that of the new 2CV electric concept; like the original, it’s essentially the same from the B-pillar forward.
Aft of the B-pillar is the nearly cubical cargo box, though here the corrugated ribs are contained within a large side door that appears to open up, like a hatch, one on each side. The integration of the cargo area into the rest of the body is also far more smooth and seamless than in the original.
The rear is now all glossy black, with a pair of windows nearly invisibly set into the twin doors that form the rear. Two horizontal taillights are also seamless set into the glossy black doors, giving the rear of the van a much sleeker look than the rest of the vehicle. You can see it better in this walkaround video:
The rear end treatment is a bit of a departure from expected 2CV style, but I think it works, and makes it very clear that we’re dealing with something modern.
It’s all very cool, and I can see a small electric delivery/cargo/coffee/food truck type van like this being something that a lot of people and companies would want; unfortunately, unlike the electric 2CV passenger car concept, this one has not been promised to go into production. As the press release disappointingly notes (emphasis mine):
Above all, the 2 CV Fourgonnette is a free expression by Citroën’s designers—a passion project. This design study was born from a spontaneous desire to bring back to life a model that defined its era and continues to evoke a unique emotional response. While this concept does not preview a future production model in the short term, it opens up new avenues for consideration and demonstrates one thing: the spirit of the 2 CV Fourgonnette remains remarkably relevant and continues to inspire.
Who knows, maybe the new EV 2CV will be a hit in 2028 or whenever, and that’ll pave the way for variants like the Fourgonnette. I guess we’ll find out!
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