Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed.
Where’s the Trump Phone? We’re going to keep talking about it every week, except next week, when we take a break until the new year. We’ve reached out, as usual, to ask about the Trump Phone’s whereabouts. As usual, we’re still waiting for a response. In the meantime, we’re wondering who’s actually behind the mobile company.
Yesterday’s announcement that one of the Trump companies is merging with TAE Technologies raised an unexpected prospect: Is the company that gave up on building phones in the US about to try making a nuclear fusion power plant instead?
The simple answer is no. The longer answer is that we don’t actually know who’s behind Trump Mobile — but it doesn’t come from Trump Media & Technology Group, the wing of the Trump empire that’s suddenly really into fusion power.
Trump Mobile was announced in June by The Trump Organization, with splashy quotes and media appearances from Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., both executive vice presidents in the company.
The Trump Organization is run by the Trump children, but owned by the US president via a trust, and it houses myriad more privately owned Trump subsidiaries. Trump Media isn’t among those — it’s a publicly traded company, founded when Trump left office as a vehicle for the Truth Social network. Trump previously owned a majority stake in the company, though that too is now in a trust — managed by Don Jr., who’s also on the Trump Media board of directors.
So Trump Media does social networks and nuclear fusion, while The Trump Organization is making the Trump phone, right? Not quite. It may have announced the Trump phone, but it did so “alongside the team from Trump Mobile,” according to the company’s press release, suggesting a degree of separation. The small print at the end hammers the point home further:
Trump Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed or sold by The Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals. T1 Mobile LLC uses the “Trump” name and trademark pursuant to the terms of a limited license agreement which may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.
So we have Trump Mobile, and now T1 Mobile LLC, neither of which are seemingly part of The Trump Organization. Trump Mobile’s site has its own small print, which says much the same:
TRUMPSM and all associated designs are trademarks of DTTM Operations LLC. TrumpSM Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed or sold by The TrumpSM Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals. T1 Mobile LLC uses the TRUMPSM name and trademark pursuant to the terms of a limited license agreement which may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.
... continue reading