Company Tied to Donald Trump Jr. Got a Deal After White House Intervened — ProPublica

Arrow Right

Caret

Close

Search ProPublica Search Close<br>ProPublica is a nonprofit, investigative newsroom that exposes<br>corruption. We report in all 50 states and partner with local newsrooms. Our work spurs real-world impact and has received numerous awards, including nine Pulitzer Prizes.

Topics We Cover<br>See All<br>Abortion<br>Civil Rights<br>Courts<br>Criminal Justice<br>Debt<br>Democracy<br>Education<br>Environment<br>Health Care<br>Health Insurance<br>Immigration<br>Labor<br>Mental Health<br>Military<br>Police<br>Politics<br>Pregnancy<br>Prison<br>Racial Justice<br>Regulation<br>Sex and Gender<br>Technology

Our Biggest Series<br>See All<br>Life of the Mother<br>How Abortion Bans Lead to Preventable Deaths

The New Immigration<br>How Recent Arrivals at the Border Have Changed the Country and Its Attitudes

Friends of the Court<br>SCOTUS Justices’ Beneficial Relationships With Billionaire Donors

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

When the Pentagon announced a $620 million loan last year to a small North Carolina startup linked to Donald Trump Jr., defense officials and the company tried to tamp down suspicions of cronyism.

The president’s eldest son said through a spokesperson that he wasn’t involved. The Pentagon said Trump Jr. played no role in the record-setting deal. And the startup’s founder told reporters that his company, Vulcan Elements, received no political favoritism.

But interviews and Defense Department records reviewed by ProPublica show that the request to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to the firm linked to Trump Jr. was made by Peter Navarro, a White House adviser to President Donald Trump and a friend of Trump Jr.’s.

Of the dozens of companies the Pentagon was considering funding at the time, Vulcan’s was the only deal initiated by a top aide to the president, said an official at the Pentagon who was not authorized to speak publicly.

After defense officials got the White House request, they asked Pentagon staff to move at an unusually rapid pace, said another person who was involved in the deal at the Pentagon but not authorized to speak about it. The staff worked late nights and with little sleep to get the loan through in a matter of weeks, the source said.

“The call came from the White House: We have to get this done,” the person said.

The deal is one of many actions by the Trump administration that have helped companies in which the Trump family holds stakes. Government contracts and other benefits have gone to various Trump-linked companies, prompting allegations of self-dealing by Democratic lawmakers and good government experts. But ProPublica’s reporting on the Vulcan loan represents the first time the awarding of a contract from a federal agency has been directly linked to White House intervention.

The loan was a massive financial commitment from the Pentagon in its effort to fund companies that could help the U.S. reduce dependence on China’s critical mineral supply chains. The deal was a dramatic win for Vulcan, a North Carolina rare-earth magnet company launched just two years earlier. Estimates of its valuation grew tenfold after the deal was announced. It was also a win for Trump Jr.’s venture capital firm, which took a stake of undisclosed size in Vulcan about three months before the Pentagon announced the deal.

Do You Know More About This Topic?

We’re still reporting on Trump family finances. If you know more about this topic, please contact our reporting team.

Robert Faturechi

Contact me, by email or securely on Signal, with tips about the federal government and Trump’s businesses.

Contact Me

And there may be more good news on the way for the president’s eldest son. Among other companies under review for a Pentagon loan was a drone parts manufacturer that Trump Jr. advises and owns a stake in, according to one of the defense officials who spoke to ProPublica.

Navarro, who served as trade adviser in Trump’s first term, and Trump Jr. have formed a close bond in recent years. The president’s son visited Navarro in prison while he served time for defying a subpoena from lawmakers investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Trump Jr. was one of the small group of people Navarro dedicated his latest book to for having “my back when it was against the wall.” And a week before the Vulcan deal was announced, Trump Jr. hosted Navarro — now the president’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing — on his streaming show, encouraging his nearly 2 million subscribers to buy Navarro’s book. That interview was not long after word came down from Navarro to Pentagon staff to make the massive loan to Vulcan, one of the defense officials involved in the deal said.

Navarro did not respond to questions from ProPublica sent to him directly. Neither did Vulcan. A White House spokesperson said in a statement that the administration is working “in the...