Guests are paying millions of dollars to dine and meet with President Donald Trump at special events held at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida.
Business leaders can secure a one-on-one meeting with the president at Mar-a-Lago for $5 million, according to sources with direct knowledge of the meetings. At a so-called candlelight dinner held as recently as this past Saturday, prospective Mar-a-Lago guests were asked to spend $1 million to reserve a seat, according to an invitation obtained by WIRED.
“You are invited to a candlelight dinner featuring special guest President Donald J. Trump,” the invitation reads, under a “MAGA INC.” header. MAGA Inc., or Make America Great Again Inc., is a super PAC that supported Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign. “Additional details provided upon RSVP. RSVPs will be accommodated on a first come, first serve basis. Space is very limited. $1,000,000 per person.”
Invitees were asked to RSVP to Meredith O’Rourke, who served as national finance director and senior adviser at Donald J. Trump for President 2024, a campaign committee, and who is the owner of The O’Rourke Group, which O’Rourke describes on her LinkedIn page as a “Republican political fundraiser.” Invitees were also directed to email Abby Mathis, the finance coordinator at MAGA Inc. Mathis was previously a staff assistant for Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama—a former Auburn University football coach—and also served as an intern at the White House office of the staff secretary, according to LegiStorm, a research organization that posts information on politicians and their staffers….
“It’s everyone else who missed the boat,” a Trumpworld source with knowledge of the meetings says, referring to latecomers to the Trump agenda. The source pointed specifically to the tech sector, where executives have scrambled to show fealty to the new administration. While X owner Elon Musk notably spent at least $260 million to elect Trump, other tech companies and executives collectively donated millions to Trump’s inauguration fund: Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Amazon executive chairman Jeff Bezos, Meta, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Uber, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, Apple CEO Tim Cook, and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman all donated $1 million each.
The $5 million one-on-one meetings have become a “hot ticket” in the business community, says a source familiar with them.
It’s unclear where the money is going and what it will be used for, but one source with direct knowledge of the dinners said “it’s all going to the library,” as in the presidential library that will ostensibly be built once Trump leaves office. MAGA Inc spent over $450 million to elect Trump in 2024, though Trump is not legally permitted to run for a third presidential term in 2028….