Latest news with #Trumps
Atlantic
3 days ago
- Business
- Atlantic
Why Would the Trump Family Want to Run a Phone Company?
The Trumps are doing phones now. This week, the Trump Organization announced its own cellphone service called Trump Mobile, as well as a gold-colored smartphone called the T1, which will purportedly be manufactured in the United States and retail for $499. It is available for preorder now and will supposedly ship in August or September, though one reporter who attempted to buy the device was left feeling unsure: His card was charged $64.70 instead of the full $100 down payment, and he was never asked to provide a shipping address. What other details do you need? 'Trump Mobile is going to revolutionize kind of, you know, cellphones,' Eric Trump, the president's son and an executive for the Trump Organization, said on Fox Business. According to Trump Mobile's Terms of Use page, its service will be 'powered by' Liberty Mobile, which itself runs on T-Mobile and uses the clever tagline 'Let Freedom Ring.' Other marketing materials confuse the issue by suggesting that Trump Mobile works with all three major carriers. The phone plan will cost $47.45 a month, which is somewhat expensive for this type of service but makes sense numerologically with Trump's brand (47th and 45th president). To be clear, Trump is not building out his own networking infrastructure. Trump Mobile will be a mobile virtual network operator (or MVNO). These essentially buy service from major providers such as T-Mobile and AT&T at a discounted, wholesale rate, and then sell that service to customers who are comfortable with making various compromises in exchange for a much lower bill than they'd have with the mainstream carriers. This is about the extent of the available details. The Trump Organization did not return my request for additional information about where the phone would be made and by whom, nor did it answer my question about whether the phone currently exists physically. (The images on the website appear to be not photographs, but questionable mock-ups—the camera is depicted without a flash, as noted by The Verge.) I also asked the Trump Organization whether the Trump family faces a conflict of interest in entering an industry that is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, an agency led by presidential appointees; no response. But I was most interested in my unanswered question about why the Trump Organization would want to be involved in the telecom industry at all. To some extent, the answer is obvious: The Trumps are involved in such a sprawling array of moneymaking endeavors, it would make more sense to ask whether there are any they would not consider trying. They've done quite a bit in the tech sector already, between NFTs, memecoins, a social-media platform, and other fascinating ventures. Still, the choice is curious, if only because operating a cellphone service seems so boring and unglamorous. It's also funny timing: Last week, the actors Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes, who co-host the super-popular podcast SmartLess, announced SmartLess Mobile, a discount phone plan that also relies on T-Mobile. That move was not well explained by its participants, either. In an interview with People about the move, Bateman said twice that most people listen to podcasts on phones, and therefore the telecom industry is a logical one for podcasters to enter. 'It just kind of organically shaped into something that really made sense for us to try,' he added. Did it? The celeb phone companies remind me, a little, of the ISP that David Bowie launched in 1998, which for $19.95 a month offered 'full uncensored' internet access, Bowie-themed chat rooms, and a coveted '@ email address. That service lasted for eight years, which is pretty impressive, but it was more of a highly laborious artistic experiment and act of fan service than an effort to maintain and profit from digital infrastructure long term. Today's businesspeople appear to be more directly inspired by the actor Ryan Reynolds's fortuitous investment in Mint Mobile, another MVNO, which sold for more than $1 billion in 2023. What they're doing is a step further than what he did, because they're not just investing in an existing phone company: The Trump Organization and the SmartLess guys are putting their names on something new. The question, then, is: Why would phone companies suddenly appeal to the type of people who might otherwise put their names on bottles of tequila or pickleball paddles or what have you? I emailed Steffen Oefner, a vice president at Magenta Telekom, the Austrian iteration of T-Mobile (MVNOs are more common in Europe), to ask him. ' Interessent point,' he replied. 'One answer is … because they can.' The MVNO industry now has a number of middleman companies that will do the work of negotiating with a network and then allow brands or influencers to simply put their name on a ready-made product, he explained. Setting up an MVNO is significantly cheaper than it was 10 years ago. 'We do expect more celebrity brands or fan-base MNVOs to appear in the mobile market,' he said. To add to my list, he gave the example of LariCel, a phone company in Brazil affiliated with the actor Larissa Manoela (who has more than 53 million followers on Instagram), which refers to its customers as LariLovers. After reviewing the list of personalities who appeared at a recent MVNO conference held in Vienna, I found James Gray of Graystone Strategy, which consults with clients in the MVNO space. He agreed with Oefner about the ease of starting an MVNO and also pointed to the invention of digital SIM cards, or eSIMS, which enable people to switch to a new phone plan instantly, without having to wait for a little piece of plastic to be shipped to them. 'Now we're in a digital world,' he said. This general point had multiple implications. Previously, he said, companies such as T-Mobile would have preferred to partner with retail companies or banks, enticing new customers by offering them special deals on products or services they were already using. Today, a digital brand such as that of 'an influencer or someone running a podcast' can also sell a service, maybe by saying that it represents their values or that it comes with access to a community. 'Trump would be a relatively famous brand,' he noted. As another example, he pointed to FC Barcelona, which recently started offering an MVNO called Barça Mobile to its many, many super-enthusiastic fans as a way to be even more intensely involved with the club (while also receiving cheap phone service). The SmartLess guys are pitching their new venture by saying that a lot of people currently pay for more cellphone data than they actually use, given that they are actually connected to Wi-Fi most of the time (suggesting, I suppose, a customer base that is often either at home or in an office). The Trump plan will offer roadside assistance and access to a telehealth service (suggesting, I suppose, a customer base that is older or generally accident-prone). In the U.S., other politics-themed MVNOs also already exist—the California-based Credo Mobile puts some of its profits into left-wing causes, while the Texas-based Patriot Mobile puts some of its profits into right-wing causes. (The latter identified itself as a trailblazer of 'the Red Economy' in a press release congratulating Trump Mobile on its launch.) Gray concluded that the appeal of the phone business to the celebrities was obvious. 'The difference between this and, say, a celebrity vodka is this is recurring revenue,' he told me. 'People sign up and they pay a subscription to you every month.' (That was also the case with Rihanna's underwear membership, though people did eventually get upset about it.) And of course, he's right—that is the big difference. That is why a famous person would want to run a phone company. We're in a digital world now. How lucky.
The Age
4 days ago
- Business
- The Age
Made in the US? Trump's MAGA mobile is just another phoney deal
The Trump family says it's going to launch a mobile phone service with phones 'proudly designed and built in the United States'. Really? Not really. For a start, the statement in the press release claiming that the new 'sleek, gold smartphone' will be manufactured in the US is false. While a spokesman for the Trump Organisation told The Wall Street Journal that the phones would be manufactured in Alabama, California and Florida, Eric Trump admitted to a podcaster that, at least initially, the phones – supposed to be available from August – would be made offshore. 'Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,' he said. 'Eventually' could involve a very long wait. While the Trumps described 'T1 Mobile' as a 'transformational, new cellular service designed to deliver top-tier connectivity, unbeatable value and all-American service for our nation's hardest-working people', what's on offer appears to be an expensive re-badging of another company's offering. It's a licensing deal. The Trumps aren't building anything. They're selling the Trump brand, as usual, to a third party that will create a virtual network by accessing the actual mobile networks operated by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Are they at least offering the unbeatable value their announcement proclaimed? It appears not. The plan, as described, is $US499 ($766) for the phone plus $US47.45 a month (Trump is both the 45th and 47th US president – how clever!) for unlimited talk and text and 20GB of high-speed internet, access to telehealth services and roadside assistance. Leaving aside the service offerings (it's unclear whether they carry additional costs; the company that will provide the telehealth service charges a minimum of $US29 a month), the Trump Mobile plan costs more than twice that of similar plans offered by the companies whose networks will deliver the services.
Business Times
4 days ago
- Business
- Business Times
Trump Mobile joins the Oval Office sales parade
THE president of the US' two eldest sons are getting into the mobile phone business. Their company, Trump Mobile, is now offering a monthly plan, serviced by three existing telecommunications heavyweights – AT&T, Verizon Communications and T-Mobile US. Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, who are stewards of the family's holding company, the Trump Organization, said they would also offer customers a 'sleek, gold smartphone' that will be 'Made In The USA'. They are pitching their new enterprise as 'transformational'. It really is not a transformational deal, however. Ryan Reynolds slapped his name on a similar service years ago, Mint Mobile, that added the magic dust of his celebrity and low rates to a service built on existing technology. Reynolds did, however, score a big payday when he sold Mint to T-Mobile. That may be what the Trumps, who have no experience in the cellular business, had in mind with their new gig. They even flag Reynolds' company in their press release announcing it. What truly separates Trump Mobile from competitors, though, is that President Donald Trump looms in the background – around this venture and all others his sons are pursuing. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up While the sons note in their press release that the Trump Organization is not involved with selling, developing or distributing Trump Mobile service and products, none of their current dealmaking would be as accessible or as profitable if the paterfamilias was not sitting in the White House. Besides, the sons go out of their way to invoke Donald Trump's political movement by noting that Trump Mobile – a startup phone service, mind you – is 'building on the movement to put America first'. Apart from the challenges the Trumps are likely to face fashioning a mobile handset from parts sourced entirely in the US, what they are really putting first is their wallets. In theory, the Trump sons are private citizens and free to make coin however they see fit, along with reaping the rewards or consequences of doing so. But they are not flying solo. And the fruits of their labour flow to their father, as Donald Trump's federal financial disclosure forms, released on Jun 13, showed. The riches Donald Trump is harvesting as president represent a raw financial conflict of interest that shreds the integrity of his office and the bona fides of some of his core policy goals. Presidents are not subject to ethics codes that govern other federal employees, because the Constitution's framers felt a strict set of rules would invariably hamstring the executive. (They did try to prevent foreign bribery with the Emoluments Clause, which seems quaint now.) Still, presidents in the modern era have typically placed their financial holdings in a blind trust managed by an independent third party, which I highlighted in 2016 when Donald Trump was pursuing his first successful presidential bid. Despite numerous opportunities to do as his predecessors from both political parties had done, Donald Trump did not distance himself in substance or practice from the operations of the Trump Organization or Trump-affiliated entities during his first presidential term. Even Nelson Rockefeller – heir to a fortune far more substantial and consequential than Donald Trump's – sat for congressional grillings in 1974 about his family's operations. And he was only seeking confirmation to be vice-president. But that was the post-Watergate 1970s, and holding elected officials accountable for their business dealings was a non-partisan measure of good government and good faith. Times have changed. Although the Trumps and the White House emphasise that Donald Trump's holdings are in a trust, it is a trust overseen by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, and is not, therefore, 'blind'. There simply is not a meaningful firewall separating Donald Trump from his businesses. Even the porous financial buffer between him and foreign entities seeking favours from the US, or domestic operators seeking federal deals or regulatory or tax relief, that existed in his first term has given way to no buffer at all. (Spend some time with Bloomberg News reporter Max Abelson's account of the Trump financial locomotive for a thorough look at all of this.) Some of the wheeling and dealing that used to take place at Donald Trump's Washington hotel during his first term now just take place inside the White House itself. Consider the private dinner Donald Trump hosted at his Virginia golf club, followed by a tour of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the next day, for cryptocurrency players willing to invest enough money in the $Trump memecoin to be considered one of its top 25 holders. (A larger group of 220 investors got the meal but not the tour.) The value of the memecoin rose 56 per cent when Donald Trump's Washington crypto fete was announced. That came on the heels of Donald Trump's own push to give federal regulatory blessings and support to the crypto industry. The president is not a detached observer of any of this. His financial disclosures show he personally earned at least US$57.7 million from his family's crypto dealings last year. Trump Media & Technology Group, a publicly traded firm that began as a holding company for a social media platform, Truth Social, has made a push into crypto that appears to have helped keep its valuation aloft. Donald Trump has moved recently to unload most of his majority holding in Trump Media – a stake now worth more than US$2 billion. Donald Trump's crypto machinations may be his most lucrative and glaring financial conflict, but it is far from the only one. The financial disclosure forms also showed tens of millions of dollars in royalty payments from Trump-branded watches, sneakers, fragrances, non-fungible tokens and a guitar. A Save America coffee table book and a Trump Bible also contributed to the haul. Donald Trump has always been a human shingle, willing to license his name on almost anything to almost any bidder. But most of the flotsam he is selling now benefits from an Oval Office sales boost. There is also old-fashioned pay-to-play mud baths that have always surrounded Washington. Elon Musk, who donated lavishly to Donald Trump's re-election bid, has lots of business with the government, and for a time oversaw the president's federal downsizing efforts. There is the US$400 million Qatari jet Donald Trump has accepted as a budget-friendly replacement for the existing Air Force One, but it will revert to his presidential library when he leaves office. He has weakened environmental regulations for oil companies, as he promised to do while fundraising with oil majors at a Mar-a-Lago gathering during the 2024 campaign. Business leaders are reportedly paying millions of dollars to a political action committee for the privilege of dining with him at the same Palm Beach resort. Donald Trump's state visit to the Middle East last month followed his two sons' successful pursuit of real estate deals in the region before the president travelled there. And so on. So what are the chances that Donald Trump will use his sons' new mobile venture as a reason to lean on AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile to give his children or the market they inhabit favourable treatment in exchange for some form of regulatory or business relief? Probably just as good as the chances of money from the cellular startup finding its way into Donald Trump's coffers. It is a sorry state of public affairs and, until the rules are changed and enforced, Donald Trump and his family will continue feathering their nest. BLOOMBERG The writer, a senior executive editor of Bloomberg Opinion, is author of TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald
Sydney Morning Herald
5 days ago
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Made in the US? Trump's MAGA phone is just another phoney deal
The Trump family says it's going to launch a mobile phone service with phones 'proudly designed and built in the United States'. Really? Not really. For a start, the statement in the press release claiming that the new 'sleek, gold smartphone' will be manufactured in the US is false. While a spokesman for the Trump Organisation told The Wall Street Journal that the phones would be manufactured in Alabama, California and Florida, Eric Trump admitted to a podcaster that, at least initially, the phones – supposed to be available from August – would be made offshore. 'Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,' he said. 'Eventually' could involve a very long wait. While the Trumps described 'T1 Mobile' as a 'transformational, new cellular service designed to deliver top-tier connectivity, unbeatable value and all-American service for our nation's hardest-working people,' what's on offer appears to be an expensive re-badging of another company's offering. It's a licensing deal. The Trumps aren't building anything. They're selling the Trump brand, as usual, to a third party that will create a virtual network by accessing the actual mobile networks operated by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Are they at least offering the unbeatable value their announcement proclaimed? It appears not. The plan, as described, is $US499 ($766) for the phone plus $US45.47 a month (Trump is both the 45th and US 47th president, how clever!) for unlimited talk and text and 20GB of high-speed internet, access to telehealth services and roadside assistance. Leaving aside the service offerings because it's unclear whether they carry additional costs – the company that will provide the telehealth service charges a minimum of $US29 a month – the Trump Mobile plan costs more than twice that of similar plans offered by the companies whose networks will deliver the services.
The Age
5 days ago
- Business
- The Age
Made in the US? Trump's MAGA phone is just another phoney deal
The Trump family says it's going to launch a mobile phone service with phones 'proudly designed and built in the United States'. Really? Not really. For a start, the statement in the press release claiming that the new 'sleek, gold smartphone' will be manufactured in the US is false. While a spokesman for the Trump Organisation told The Wall Street Journal that the phones would be manufactured in Alabama, California and Florida, Eric Trump admitted to a podcaster that, at least initially, the phones – supposed to be available from August – would be made offshore. 'Eventually, all the phones can be built in the United States of America,' he said. 'Eventually' could involve a very long wait. While the Trumps described 'T1 Mobile' as a 'transformational, new cellular service designed to deliver top-tier connectivity, unbeatable value and all-American service for our nation's hardest-working people,' what's on offer appears to be an expensive re-badging of another company's offering. It's a licensing deal. The Trumps aren't building anything. They're selling the Trump brand, as usual, to a third party that will create a virtual network by accessing the actual mobile networks operated by AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile. Are they at least offering the unbeatable value their announcement proclaimed? It appears not. The plan, as described, is $US499 ($766) for the phone plus $US45.47 a month (Trump is both the 45th and US 47th president, how clever!) for unlimited talk and text and 20GB of high-speed internet, access to telehealth services and roadside assistance. Leaving aside the service offerings because it's unclear whether they carry additional costs – the company that will provide the telehealth service charges a minimum of $US29 a month – the Trump Mobile plan costs more than twice that of similar plans offered by the companies whose networks will deliver the services.
