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The information landscape in the United States has reached a crisis point. Billionaires are using the social media platforms and media outlets they control to curry favor with Trump.
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We were promised a gold-plated Trump phone
For 11 months, Trump Mobile has been collecting $100 deposits for a Trump phone. No phones have shipped to customers.
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On June 16, 2025, President Trump’s two eldest sons, Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, announced the launch of Trump Mobile. The new venture’s flagship product was “a sleek, gold smartphone engineered for performance“ called the T1 Phone. The pair announced Trump Mobile at Trump Tower in New York City on the 10th anniversary of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign announcement.
According to the press release, the T1 phone would be “proudly designed and built in the United States” and available in August 2025 for $499. Trump’s sons promised that the new service will feature a “best in class customer service team, based in the United States” that “will be available 24 hours a day to assist.”
The Trump Mobile website, which launched the same day, encouraged customers to deposit $100 to “pre-order” the “MADE IN THE USA ‘T1 Phone.” According to the website, the T1 would be available in September 2025.
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A spokesman for Trump Mobile told the Wall Street Journal on launch day that “manufacturing for the new phone will be in Alabama, California and Florida.” Appearing on “The Benny Show,” Trump Jr. said the T1 phone was “American hardware, built in America, without the potential of…[a] backdoor into the hardware that some of our adversaries have installed in there.”
Although Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr. announced the phone at Trump Tower and promoted it during media appearances, a disclaimer on the website says that neither the Trump Organization nor any of the Trump family are making or selling the products:
Trump Mobile and all 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.
This is a typical arrangement for The Trump Organization, which remains wholly owned by President Trump. (Although, technically, the company currently is held by a revocable trust run by Trump Jr., the trust has no legal significance.) Trump earns millions of dollars annually from similar agreements.
A reporter from 404 Media, Joseph Cox, pre-ordered the phone on launch day and was initially charged $64.70. Cox was told he would receive a notification when the phone had been shipped but he had not provided a shipping address. In July, Trump Mobile placed two additional charges on Cox’s credit card, one for $100 and another for $64.70, without explanation. When Cox called the customer service number, the representative could not assist him. A Reuters reporter who called the line in June 2025 was greeted with, “Omega Auto Care, how can I help you?“
In July 2025, Pat O’Brien, an executive working on the Trump Mobile venture, said that the company had “gotten a lot of pre-orders“ but would not disclose how many.
A $499 “MADE IN THE USA” phone was always a fantasy. There is only one phone that is currently assembled in the United States, the Liberty Phone. It costs $2000 and “has specs that would have been more impressive a decade ago.” It includes parts made in China and other Asian countries. The T1 promised high-end specs including Android 15, a 50 megapixel camera, a 6.8 inch screen, and 12 gigabytes of RAM.
By June 25, 2025, the description of the T1 changed dramatically. The phone was no longer promoted as “MADE IN THE USA.” Instead it was “Proudly American” and “designed with American values in mind” — two phrases that mean little.
In October 2025, a call center operator told NBC News that the T1 phone would be shipped on November 13, 2025. That did not happen. The reporter was then told the phone would be available in early December. On December 31, 2025, a reporter from Fortune was told the T1 would be available in “mid to late January.” The Trump Mobile representative told Fortune that the phone had been delayed “due to the government shutdown.”
In January 2026, a Trump Mobile representative said that the company was “in the final stages of certification and field testing” and would ship “