The White House’s Freedom 250 initiative bills its events as a patriotic tribute to American independence, its centerpiece a July 4 fireworks show on the National Mall.
But many of the corporate giants backing the program, which has been heavily promoted by President Donald Trump, have also been increasingly active spenders in Washington – and Trump himself has a financial stake in many of their fortunes.
Together, the 20 corporate sponsors – many of which have business before the federal government – have spent more than $138 million on federal lobbying since Trump returned to the White House. Their corporate political action committees have directed an additional $17.2 million to federal candidates and committees so far this election cycle.
Trump executed nearly 100 stock and bond trades involving those same companies during the first three months of 2026 alone, with federal financial disclosure forms showing the combined value of those transactions to be between $6.9 million and $27 million.
“The only thing you could do is take this piece by piece and zero in on one thing at a time, because it’s just such a massive web of financial conflicts,” said Richard Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School who served as chief ethics lawyer in the White House Counsel’s Office under President George W. Bush.
Corporate lobbying and campaign contributions are standard parts of the machinery in Washington. But ethics experts say Freedom 250 raises separate concerns because it also involves a president whose stock trading is unprecedented in modern history.
“We see now that the 250th appears to be very much involved with promoting not only the president’s political agenda – which we didn’t have in the 200th anniversary in 1976 – but also particular companies in which the president and his friends have a financial interest,” Painter said.
Compared with the two years leading up to the January 2025 start of Trump’s second term, most sponsors sharply increased their lobbying pushes, spending far more on lobbying than on campaign fundraising while focusing their political muscle across defense, energy and healthcare.
Many of the steepest spending spikes came from defense contractors, energy giants and enterprise‑software firms. Only a handful of sponsors scaled back their lobbying activity. Most spend far more on lobbying than their corporate PACs donate – often by a factor of 10 or more. SAP, for example, has spent $5.6 million lobbying since January 2025 compared with about $59,000 in disbursements during that time from its corporate PAC.
Still, those PACs – funded by company executives and other employees – steered significant sums to candidates and committees, including $13 million in direct candidate contributions, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Two sponsors – January AI and Phorm Energy, an energy drink company co-founded by UFC CEO Dana White and produced by Anheuser Busch – reported no lobbying activity and do not have corporate PACs registered with the FEC. White’s UFC – which staged a June 14 mixed martial arts event on the White House lawn to mark Trump’s 80th birthday and Flag Day – also sponsors the Freedom 250 initiative. Its parent company, TKO Group Holdings, has not lobbied the federal government but does maintain a PAC.
Freedom 250, America250: Similar names, different aims
The private cash pouring into the program also has highlighted a deep divide in how the milestone is being managed. Despite their similar names, two semiquincentennial organizations operate with markedly different aims.
America250, formally the U.S. Semiquincentennial Commission, is a federal body established in 2016 by Congress and supported by a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that must file annual spending reports. It is organizing Independence Day-related events in several cities across the country.
Separately, Trump established the public-private partnership Freedom 250 by a January 2025 executive order as a National Park Foundation-affiliated limited liability company to organize, brand and fund semiquincentennial events from Memorial Day 2025 through 2026. Trump appointed himself as chair, tapped Vice President J.D. Vance as vice chair and placed several Cabinet members on the task force.
Congress has appropriated $150 million for the 250th celebration, with the Interior Department in charge of distributing those funds. While that agency has given at least $68 million to the National Park Foundation and earmarked it for semiquincentennial events, America250 has reported a $100 million funding shortfall, NOTUS reported.
And the money is not coming solely from the federal government. The arrangement also has created an avenue for sponsors to contribute directly to the program aligned with Trump. In addition to those corporate sponsors, the Freedom 250 website lists 27 “partners,” including 501(c)(3) nonprofits and religious organizations. But the distinction between “sponsors” and “partners” – and what each contributes – is not explained. Media reports have described five sponsorship tiers ranging from $500,000 to more than $10 million, with donors of $1 million or more receiving access to a VIP event with Trump, but the reports make no mention of the separate category of “partners” and do not specify which sponsors are in each tier.
In a statement to OpenSecrets, Freedom 250 spokesperson Julia Friedland did not address the differences between sponsors and partners but said supporters “engage in a variety of ways,” including on‑site activations on the National Mall, educational programs and public-awareness efforts. She described the growing list of partners as evidence of enthusiasm for the events and said it “demonstrates the many ways organizations can contribute” to the celebration.
Experts said Freedom 250 fits into a broader trend of Trump using official events to promote private interests. Painter pointed to Tesla displays at the White House, corporate courting around the Easter Egg Roll, the UFC fight on the South Lawn and the sponsorship-backed ballroom under construction where the East Wing once stood.
“It is continuing a concerning trend of private interests currying favor for potentially public policy benefits,” said Gary Kalman, executive director of the nonprofit advocacy group Transparency International U.S. “Now, there’s no quid pro quo. … It’s not bribery or anything like that. But it is part of a tradition, unfortunately, of events that are put on or sponsored through the public or for public good that co-mingle personal interests and private cash.”
Trump’s stock trades include Oracle, UnitedHealth Group
No president has been as active in the stock market as Trump, who disclosed in May that during the first three months of 2026, his trust executed more than 3,000 trades – including dozens involving Freedom 250 sponsors.
Federal ethics filings show Trump made 89 trades of corporate bonds or stock in 13 event sponsors between Jan. 6 and March 27. In that span, he purchased securities 69 times and made 20 sales, with 62 transactions concentrated in March alone.
The most frequently traded securities involved Oracle, the enterprise software giant co-founded by billionaire Larry Ellison, a prominent Trump supporter. Trump – who had previously bought between $100,001 and $250,000 in Oracle corporate bonds on Oct. 31, 2025 – made 13 stock purchases and two additional corporate-bond purchases during the first quarter of 2026, with the total value of those buys ranging from $1.5 million to $6.4 million. His portfolio’s March 17 purchase of between $1 million and $5 million in Oracle stock was his single most expensive buy of the quarter. He also sold Oracle stock six times, generating proceeds between $1.1 million and $5.4 million.
Trump also traded stock in the data integration and analytics company Palantir 14 times, with nine share purchases and five sales. Seven purchases in March were valued collectively between $197,000 and $530,000.
Then, in an April 10 Truth Social post referencing Palantir’s stock symbol, Trump said the company – which holds a $10 billion U.S. Army contract – “has proven to have great war fighting capabilities and equipment. Just ask our enemies!!!” Following the comment, Palantir’s stock price briefly climbed 3%, The Hill reported.
The president was similarly active with healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group, making 10 stock purchases between Jan. 12 and March 23 valued between $235,000 and $625,000. He also sold shares in the company three times, including a single Feb. 10 sale worth between $1 million and $5 million. Trump previously bought between $1 million and $5 million in the company’s corporate bonds on Aug. 28, 2025.
Prominent role for lobbying firm with deep Trump ties
Twelve of the 17 Freedom 250 sponsors that reported lobbying the federal government increased their spending during the first five quarters of Trump’s second term compared with their normalized 2023-24 baseline.
Two companies more than doubled their spending since the start of 2025. Penske has spent $960,000 on lobbying since then – a 326% jump, spending as much in the first quarter of 2026 as it did in all of 2023. And Mosaic’s 203% increase comes with a caveat: The chemical and mining company reported no lobbying in 2024. Seven firms spent at least $10 million lobbying since Trump returned to office, led by Northrop Grumman, which has spent $19.8 million.
Northrop Grumman was one of seven sponsors to hire Ballard Partners – the nation’s top-earning firm, and one with deep ties to the Trump White House. Founder Brian Ballard chaired the Trump Victory PAC in 2016 and 2017, and its alumni include current White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles. Ballard Partners took in $59.5 million in 2025 and became the first firm to clear $30 million in a single quarter when it did so in early 2026.
Palantir – which held roughly $145 million in Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract obligations in 2025 – paid Ballard Partners $660,000 last year and $150,000 so far in 2026. It also hired Miller Strategies, led by Jeff Miller, a finance chair on Trump’s second inaugural committee. Palantir paid Miller Strategies $690,000 in 2025 and $200,000 in early 2026.
In a general sense, lobbying spending is often less about buying proximity to a specific White House event and more about responding to shifts in federal policy, veteran lobbyist Chris Micheli told OpenSecrets.
“Timing, naturally, is a factor, but the overall policy – is it something positive or negative?” Micheli said. “Is it something that we as a company can impact or influence? That’s going to be more of a driving force than the timing itself.”
One Freedom 250 sponsor illustrates that dynamic.
Scotts Miracle-Gro, one of the five sponsors that reduced its lobbying spending from 2023-24, paid BGR Government Affairs $90,000 in early 2026 to lobby the White House and other federal agencies on issues including “pesticide regulation.” On Feb. 18, Trump signed an executive order aimed at boosting domestic production of glyphosate-based herbicides. That chemical is the active ingredient in Roundup, manufactured by Bayer but marketed and distributed in North America by Scotts Miracle-Gro. The Supreme Court heard arguments in April on a case involving glyphosate cancer claims, with the Trump administration filing a brief in support of the company. A ruling is expected in July.
After the June 14 UFC event at the White House, Scotts Miracle-Gro announced it would contribute $1 million to restore the lawn where the mixed martial arts bouts were held, with Trump personally picking the company’s proprietary turfgrass.
Bipartisan giving from sponsors’ corporate PACs
Compared to their lobbying arms, the sponsors’ corporate PACs tend to be far less active – perhaps because PACs face strict contribution limits while there is no such cap on lobbying spending. Twelve of the firms spent at least 10 times more on lobbying than their corporate PACs disbursed. For both SAP and Palantir, the ratio was more than 80 to 1.
Six of those corporate PACs have spent more than $1 million during the 2025-26 cycle, led by defense contractors Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin, whose PACs have contributed $3.6 million and nearly $3.4 million, respectively.
Both show a bipartisan giving strategy with significant contributions to the primary congressional fundraising arms of both parties. FEC records show Northrop Grumman’s corporate PAC donated $210,000 each to four major party committees that raise funds for members of both parties in both congressional chambers – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Congressional Committee and National Republican Senatorial Committee.
Lockheed Martin’s PAC gave $120,000 to each of those committees along with $210,000 to the Republican National Committee and $30,000 to the Democratic National Committee.
Aside from TKO Group Holdings, the only sponsor whose corporate PAC spending exceeded lobbying is Deloitte, a consulting firm that holds tens of millions of dollars worth of contracts with ICE. Its PAC has disbursed more than $2.7 million during the 2025-26 cycle – slightly more than the $2.5 million the firm spent on federal lobbying during the same period, and the third-highest total among Freedom 250 sponsors.
Its FEC filings also show a pattern of giving to both parties. In addition to contributing $30,000 to each of the parties’ main congressional committees, it made dozens of contributions to House and Senate incumbents – many of whom sit on committees overseeing federal spending, contracting, technology and national security. Among Deloitte PAC’s contributions:
- $10,000 to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)
- $7,500 to Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), chair of the House Appropriations Defense Subcommittee.
- $5,000 to Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
- $5,000 to Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.), the chair of the House Armed Services Committee.
- $5,000 to Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
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