SoftBank’s $50 Million Trump Library Donation Preceded Its Federal Data Center Deal

SoftBank has told Senate Democrats it donated $50 million to Donald Trump’s presidential library in January, about two months before the Trump administration announced a federal land lease letting SoftBank’s SB Energy subsidiary build one of the world’s largest AI data centers on a former uranium enrichment site in Ohio. The company disclosed the timing in a letter responding to a congressional inquiry, first reported by The Verge, and it has sharpened Democratic lawmakers’ questions about whether gifts to the library are buying access to federal decisions.

A Data Center Campus at a Former Uranium Site

In March, SoftBank said SB Energy had formed a public-private partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy to build a data center campus, called the PORTS Technology Campus, at the department’s Portsmouth Site in Piketon, Ohio, a former uranium enrichment plant. Under the arrangement, SB Energy is leasing federal land at the site and has committed to helping fund the DOE’s environmental cleanup there. According to the Energy Department’s own announcement, the project will bring 10 gigawatts of new power generation onto the local grid, including at least 9.2 gigawatts from a new gas-fired plant, and is expected to generate 10,000 construction jobs and more than 2,000 permanent positions. Both SoftBank and the Energy Department have described the campus as the world’s largest AI data center.

Senators See a Pattern in the Timing

The donation came to light after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) sent SoftBank a letter in June asking the company to explain its contribution to Trump’s library and raising concerns that it could amount to a bribe. In its written response, SoftBank confirmed the $50 million gift was made in January, roughly two months before the Ohio partnership was announced. “Are we expected to believe it’s a coincidence that two months after Softbank donated $50 million to the Trump library, his administration announced a massive lease deal for Softbank’s data center?” Warren said in a statement to The Verge.

The lawmakers also pointed to SoftBank’s history of giving to presidential libraries: the company had previously donated to the libraries of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, but only after those presidents had left office and after the library foundations had already been established. With Trump still in office and no library yet built, the senators argue the Ohio-linked donation follows a different pattern.

A Foundation With the President’s Son as Trustee

The scrutiny is complicated by the state of the fund originally meant to collect library donations. The Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Fund, the nonprofit initially set up for that purpose, was dissolved by the state of Florida in September 2025 after it failed to file a required annual report. SoftBank’s letter says its $50 million instead went to a separate, currently active nonprofit called the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, Inc. Eric Trump, the president’s son and an executive vice president at the Trump Organization, is listed as a trustee of that foundation, according to the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), which has separately raised concerns that the Trump family could financially benefit from how the library itself gets developed. SoftBank’s letter states: “As with its prior contributions to Presidential libraries, SoftBank understands that this donation will be used to support the construction and operation of the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library.”

SoftBank’s letter does not directly address Warren’s bribery characterization, and the Ohio data center project is moving ahead regardless: the Energy Department says construction is expected to begin this year. SoftBank’s response puts the timeline on the record, a $50 million donation in January and a 10-gigawatt federal data center deal two months later, without settling the question the senators are actually asking: whether the two were connected, or coincidental.