Trump said he’s good at building 'on budget.' Then the ballroom cost escalated by 50%

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has often touted his experience as a real estate builder who is good at building things “on budget and on time,” as he did when he hosted a dinner last week for donors to his long-championed White House ballroom.

Then, exactly a week later, on Wednesday, Trump quoted a brand-new price tag for the 90,000-square-foot ballroom: $300 million, a 50% increase from the cost he quoted when he first unveiled the project in July. And a 20% increase since September, when he said it would cost $250 million.

Trump, who initially said he would finance the ballroom himself, also began accepting donations from private donors over the last three months. Many of them are parties with ongoing business with the U.S. government.

Earlier this week, the project sparked widespread outrage after demolition and tree clearance began of the entire East Wing to accommodate the massive ballroom. Trump had initially said the project would not “touch” the existing structure.

A White House official brushed off the changes in response to a question by USA Today, saying, “the scope and size of the ballroom project has always been subject to vary as the scope and size of the process developed.”

The White House has long projected confidence about completing the project before Trump’s term ends in January 2029.

At a dinner with donors to the ballroom project and on several prior occasions, Trump played up his builder bona fides – and slammed others, such as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and former President Barack Obama, for their perceived lack of expertise in the area and cost overruns on construction projects under their supervision.

“I’m very good at building things on time and on budget,” Trump told the group of donors who had been invited to an Oct. 15 dinner in the East Room to thank them for their “generous” donations.

Then he proceeded to take a dig at Powell by bringing up the $2.5 billion renovation to the central bank’s headquarters.

The cost of the renovation of the Fed’s headquarters overlooking the National Mall in Washington was originally estimated at $1.9 billion in 2019, but the budget swelled by 33% to $2.5 billion in 2025.

“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. This guy, he’s too late,” said Trump to the donors on Oct. 15, referring to his other gripe with Powell that he was not lowering interest rates fast enough. Trump said the upgrade to the headquarters “didn’t need to be done.”

In July, Trump toured the ongoing renovations of the Fed’s headquarters and claimed the project had grown again, to $3.1 billion. The chairman disputed the president’s estimate of the cost overruns.

“I’m not aware of that, Mr. President. I’ve not heard about that from anyone at the Fed,” Powell said.

Trump has also frequently criticized Obama’s presidential library in Chicago for going over the initial budget. The project was proposed at $350 million in 2016, and the cost rose to $830 million in 2021.

“It’s closed. It’s stopped. They ran out of money,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 21, a day before he mentioned his own inflated budget for the ballroom. “They’re stuck, and he wanted only women and DEI to build it. Well, that’s what they got.”

The center was supposed to open in 2021, but it would not be opening until 2026, according to officials. It is also mired in a lawsuit from a subcontractor.

Back in May, Trump even offered to help, touting his background in real estate during a bilateral meeting in the Oval Office with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

“President Obama – and if he wanted help, I’d give him help because I’m a really good builder and I build on time, on budget,” said Trump. “He’s building his library in Chicago, and it’s a disaster.”

A list of donors to the ballroom the White House shared with USA Today shows contributions have come in from American corporations in the tech and defense industries that have business before the government, as well as from wealthy individuals.

The corporations include Palantir, Amazon, Lockheed Martin, Comcast, Google, Booze Allen Hamilton and Meta. Stephen Schwarzman, chairman and CEO of the Blackstone Group, a global alternative asset management company, is listed as an individual donor. Also included are members of the Trump administration, including Small Business Administrator Kelly Loeffler and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who is listed as the Lutnick Family.

The White House did not respond to a question from USA Today about how much each donor had paid.