Trump’s corporate-sponsored Easter egg roll is turning the White House into NASCAR
While the high cost of eggs has been a persistent issue in President Trump’s second term, a different kind of egg price is now raising eyebrows around America. Over the weekend, CNN reported that the Trump administration is soliciting corporate sponsorships for this year’s White House Easter Egg Roll.
For anywhere between $75,000 and $200,000, companies can now have their logo prominently displayed during the April 21 event, along with further “branding opportunities.” It’s only the latest sign that this presidency is quite literally open for business—and coming so soon after a recent Tesla infomercial on the South Lawn, it may have completed the NASCAR-ification of the White House.
According to a pitch document shared by the New York Times that appears to be from event-planning company Harbinger, which produced the egg roll throughout Trump’s previous term, the White House is offering “initial planning” and “event day execution” for companies who are hungry for brand exposure this Easter. Sponsors will reportedly have a chance to nab “naming rights for key areas or elements,” splash their logos on “event signage” and “custom-branded baskets, snacks/beverages, or souvenirs” and also offer “custom on-site activation” for participating children to use while making social media content.
(The White House and Harbinger have not confirmed the authenticity of the document. Fast Company has reached out to the White House and Harbinger and will update if we hear back.)
Partnerships between the White House and corporations are not exactly unheard of. The Biden administration, for instance, partnered with McDonald’s in 2021 to encourage Americans to get vaccinated, while Barack Obama hosted the first White House Maker Faire in 2014, featuring STEM tool kits provided by LEGO Systems. Brands have even been involved in the Easter Egg Roll before, though the White House has reportedly been careful about logo use and appearing to endorse a business. A gauche avalanche of logos stands to turn this year’s adorable White House event into something more like last December’s College Football Playoff’s Vrbo Fiesta Bowl at State Farm Stadium.
At the $200,000 level—the Platinum sponsorship package—brands can get prominent logo placement and all the bells and whistles mentioned above, along with 150 tickets to give away, a chance to participate in press interviews, and four tickets to an exclusive brunch hosted by Melania Trump. (Oh, and there’s a meet-and-greet with the Easter bunny on offer. Literally.) While not every brand can afford such a sponsorship, either from a liquidity position or because their customers wouldn’t stand for it, plenty will jump at the opportunity. Considering it reportedly costs between $375,000 and $500,000 to sponsor a lower-tier college bowl game, and somewhere in the range of $25 million for one of the majors, the publicity value of an egg roll sponsorship is kind of a steal.
There’s also the unspoken promise of what else brands might get out of their sponsorship.
Although any excess funding raised from egg roll sponsors will reportedly go toward similar future White House events, it also potentially buys a big, public, double-thumbs-up from Trump himself. Beyond the crass commercial opportunity, though, sponsorship also comes with a tacit understanding that these brands may find themselves in good standing with the president’s team and his supporters—and perhaps even receive further access or influence for their efforts. The pitch document from Harbinger suggests flat out that brunch with the First Lady also comes with “exclusive access opportunities.”
There were similar chances to curry favor with Trump during his first term. At least 11 foreign governments patronized the mogul’s properties in his first year as president, during which he bucked his predecessors’ tradition of severing ties with their businesses while holding office. Domestic forces also dumped funds in Trump’s coffers at the time. Between 2017 and 2020, private-prison operators, payday lenders, and other interest groups hosted fundraisers and galas at his hotels, clubs, and resorts.
Meanwhile, Essential Consultants, a company run by Trump’s then-attorney Michael Cohen, also brought in huge sums of money from such companies as AT&T, Swedish pharma giant Novartis, and Korea Aerospace Industries. Exactly what insights AT&T got for its $600,000 is unclear. Perhaps not so coincidentally, though, the company was waiting on a decision at the time from the Justice Department over a proposed merger with Time Warner. (The decision ultimately went AT&T’s way.)
In Trump’s second term, any pretense around his impartiality to donations has all but vanished. At the very least, it’s been frozen—much like the anti-bribery statute keeping U.S. corporations from bribing foreign officials, which Trump suspended earlier this year.
The vulgar display of the Tesla endorsement that found Trump morphing into a Troy McClure-style celebrity pitchman to help out his largest donor’s sinking stock? That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Ever since the election, Trump has signaled loudly, if not clearly, that his White House is accepting gratuities. Earlier this year, members of the tech Broligarchy, including Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, donated to Trump’s inauguration fund before appearing alongside him at the event—with Bezos’s Amazon going a step further and dishing out a reported $40 million for a Melania Trump documentary, from which she stands to personally net at least $28 million.
At the same time, the president has reportedly been holding million-dollar-per-seat “candlelight dinner” fundraisers at Mar-a-Lago, and any interested party can potentially also get his attention just by pumping money into Trump’s official memecoin.
The White House Easter Egg Roll Proudly Presented By [Your Brand Here] is only the latest opportunity for corporations and their owners to show fealty to the president. It’s also a bellwether of what future White House events might look like. If enough companies chip in, giving the event more brand logos than Jeff Gordon’s jumpsuit, well, perhaps Netflix and Amazon will eventually be duking it out to win exclusive broadcast rights for The White House’s A Very Trump Christmas Spectacular.
For now, the president has merely told all interested parties: “Gentlemen, start your engines.”