Day 493

Pay-to-Play: Trump's Dell Stock Precedes $9.7B Pentagon Deal, White House Ballroom Donors Win $50B in Contracts

Around February 10, 2026, Trump purchased $1-5 million in Dell stock and publicly urged Americans to 'go out and buy a Dell computer.' Roughly two weeks after the purchase became public, the Pentagon signed a five-year, $9.7 billion software contract with Dell. Separately, a June 4 Public Citizen report found that of 27 corporate donors to Trump's White House ballroom demolition project, 14 received new or expanded federal contracts totaling more than $50 billion in the six months after giving — led by Lockheed Martin, Booz Allen Hamilton, and Palantir. Watchdog groups CREW and Public Citizen describe both episodes as pay-to-play arrangements that put the weight of the presidency behind entities with a financial relationship to Trump personally or his signature construction project.