The Trump's Loyalty Tax
Eric and Don Jr. collected $59 million from Trump’s most devoted supporters. Not one phone was delivered. Then they changed the contract.
The pitch was simple, as “trumpian” as one can imagine . An American made GOLD phone for “only” $499, with a $100 deposit to hold your place in line. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump , announced the T1 at Trump Tower in June 2025, timed, to the tenth anniversary of their father’s escalator ride. And the cult faithful showed up for it. Nearly 600,000 of them.
That’s $59 million collected based on trust. There was nothing to this offer, but trust. The trust in Trump’s name.
Not one phone has been delivered. Not one.
Here’s what happened in between.
The shipping date was summer 2025. Then late 2025. Then Q1 2026. Then the date disappeared from the website entirely. There was neither an update, nor an explanation. The delivery date just disappeared from the website. When NBC News placed its own deposit and followed up after the November deadline passed, customer service had an explanation ready: the federal government shutdown was causing delays. The government shutdown. As an excuse for a private smartphone company run by the president’s sons that has no operational connection to the federal government whatsoever.
The excuse is almost impressive in its brazenness. It assumes the customer won’t think too hard, won’t push back, will accept the answer and wait another quarter. For 590,000 people, apparently, that assumption held.
The “Made in USA” claim dissolved faster than the shipping timeline. Trump Mobile launched with that language as a banner headline, etched American flag on the back of the phone, slapped “patriot pricing”, the whole Trumpian schtick, like so many before. Analysts pointed out within days that no domestic manufacturing facility capable of producing a smartphone at scale exists. The website quietly removed the claim. By February 2026, executives confirmed bulk production would happen overseas. Final assembly of “roughly the last ten components” would occur in Miami. Ten components. That’s the American manufacturing story.
Then came April 6, 2026.
That’s the date Trump Mobile published its revised terms of service. If you missed it, here’s what it now says: your $100 deposit “does not constitute a completed purchase.” It is “a conditional opportunity to buy the device if Trump Mobile eventually chooses to sell it.”
Read that again. A conditional opportunity to buy. If they choose to sell. Anything.
They took $59 million and then rewrote the contract to say they never owed anything. That language didn’t appear by accident. A lawyer wrote it, reviewed it, approved it. Someone made a decision about what the company’s legal exposure looked like and decided to eliminate it retroactively. That’s not a struggling startup failing to deliver. That’s a company protecting itself from having to deliver.
There is no customer service phone number. There is only an email address.
No refunds have been issued.
Senator Elizabeth Warren and ten other lawmakers sent a letter to the FTC in January 2026 asking for an investigation into bait-and-switch tactics and false advertising. The FTC has not publicly responded.
This is worth sitting with. The agency tasked with protecting American consumers from exactly this pattern: collect deposits, miss every deadline, change the terms, blame the government, reports to an administration that shares a last name with the company under scrutiny. The protection racket completes its circuit, the regulator looks the other way. And the depositors can only wait and grind their teeth.
590,000 of them. Most of them Trump voters, exactly the kind of people who bought the pitch because they trusted the name on it.
This is not a new move in the history of American con. It’s not even a particularly original one.
The Trump brand has run variations on this model for years. Trump University extracted tuition from students who believed the name meant something, then settled fraud claims for $25 million. The NFT trading cards, the MAGA coins, the gold sneakers, the Bible — each one a different container for the same transaction: loyalty converted into cash, obligation minimized, terms written in the company’s favor. The T1 is the biggest single instance by dollar amount. It fits the pattern of every Trump’s enterprise.
What makes this one different is who got hit. Not Trump’s critics, not his opponents. The 590,000 people who paid their $100 were his core believers. They wanted the gold phone with Trump’s name and the American flag on it. They wanted to carry the brand in their pocket. Just like they wear oversized cross pendants to prove their devotion to Jesus. They trusted that this gold phone, of all things, was the real deal.
They got a revised terms of service and an email address.
Think, if anyone else had done this... Collected $59 million in deposits, missed every deadline, quietly removed the “Made in USA” claim, changed the contract to say they never owed a product, and set up no phone number for the people they owed money to, we would definitely know what to call it.
The words exists. A scam, a con, a fraud, a swindle, a hoax, and a rip-off .
In Trump’s America we’re just not allowed to apply it equally. On paper, all animals in America are still equal, but some are more equal than others. What is tragic that so many Americans are ready to accept it and pay the Loyalty Tax without even questioning it.
Sources: NBC News, Financial Times, The Guardian, IBTimes, 404 Media, PhoneArena, FTC Congressional Letter January 2026
#resisttogether
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Motherfucker trump and his crime family have been crooks his whole misrable life. What a pile of shit (or, if you’d rather, 350 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag).
Our Sunday article: The Pulse
🔊 Trump Mobile: $59M sent by customers, still no phones
https://ojaiohana.substack.com/p/grift-y-gold-phones-may-never-arrive?r=5chxge