A black-tie gala thrown for the top 220 buyers of Donald Trump’s meme coin Thursday night at his Virginia golf club featured the president flying in on Marine One and speaking at a lectern emblazoned with the presidential seal, despite the White House arguing that it was a “private” event and he was “attending it in his personal time.”
But while the event prompted ethics experts to warn that Trump has crossed a line by potentially profiting directly from his presidency while simultaneously allowing crypto enthusiasts and others to buy access to the office, leaked footage and reports from inside the event reveal that some attendees came away highly disappointed.
Particularly over the meal, which left a lot to be desired. While the menu for the evening was a filet mignon with demi-glaze and pan-seared halibut with a citrus reduction, what was served to the guests wouldn’t have looked out of place at Ikea — albeit served on dinner plates emblazoned with a gilded “Trump Washington, D.C.” logo.
“It was the worst food I’ve ever had at a Trump golf course,” TikTok personality Nick Pinto, who gained entry by investing $300,000 in the Trump family cryptocurrency, told Wired. “The only good thing was bread and butter.”
While Pinto said he left the gala hungry, another attendee also gave subpar marks for the food.
“OK, but not top-class,” the guest reviewed the fare served him at the Trump National Golf Club.
After Wired reporter Matthew Champion posted a picture – shared with him by one of the attendees – of a sad plate of food served at the event, it didn’t take long for the mockery to go into full swing.
“I’ve had better food on Spirit Airlines,” snarked CNBC correspondent Steve Kovach, who was not at the event, referencing the discount airline.
Indeed, the photo showed a minuscule portion of food on the large, white-with-gold-leaf Trump plate. A handful of orange sticks – perhaps carrots – sat alongside a lonely slice of squash, while it appeared an ice cream scoop was used to add a dollop of yellow mashed potatoes on the dish. The small piece of halibut looked more like dry chicken, and the filet was covered in brown gravy but still appeared extremely overcooked.
“[T]hey used the catering service from the fyre festival lol,” The Ringer senior staff writer Joel Anderson reacted, invoking the fraudulent “luxury” music Fyre festival that resulted in a prison sentence for its organizer who had promised gourmet food and accommodations to a Bahamas music festival that in reality amounted to slices of cheese on white bread and flimsy, leaking tents.
Of course, the guests weren’t at Trump’s gala for the food – they were hoping to get some face time with the leader of the free world. But that, too, brought about some disappointment from those gathered.
After Trump arrived at the golf course via his presidential helicopter, he delivered a 25-minute by-the-numbers speech that only briefly touched on cryptocurrency.
“I think it’s really got a great, great future,” Trump said in one clip shared online. “I think you’re on the cutting edge. Everyone thinks it is just the beginning. And I can just say that we are, we’re believers in the whole administration. We’re big believers.”
In a separate clip shared by Justin Sun, a Chinese billionaire known for his publicity stunts who has spent more than $20 million on the $TRUMP meme coin, the presidential seal was clearly visible on Trump’s lectern.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt had previously tried to head off any criticism over the gala, which included The Wall Street Journal editorial board accusing Trump of using his office to enrich himself and his family, by merely insisting it wasn’t an official event.
Asked during Thursday’s press briefing about the likelihood that most of the top buyers were foreign investors and whether the administration would publish a list of the attendees so the public knew who was buying access to the president, Leavitt said: “The president is attending it in his personal time. It is not a White House dinner, it’s not taking place here at the White House.”
She also grumbled that it was “absurd for anyone to insinuate that this president is profiting off of the presidency.”
Since the meme coin’s debut in January, Trump’s businesses have made over $300 million in sales and $43 million in total fees, according to a Washington Post analysis. After the dinner was announced last month, Trump and his business partners have brought in over $3 million in transaction fees alone.
Sun, meanwhile, was charged in 2023 by the Biden-era Securities and Exchange Commission with fraud and market manipulation. Those charges were put on hold by Trump’s SEC after Sun invested $75 million in another Trump family crypto project, World Liberty Financial.
While neither the White House nor the gala organizers made the list of the 220 top buyers public and the event was closed to the press, raising additional ethical concerns over the secrecy, Sun said that he topped the buyer leaderboard.
“The contest to attend the crypto dinner ran from April 23 to May 12, and it was not immediately clear how much the meme coin buyers paid to attend the event,” the Washington Post reported. “The top 25 on an online leader board set up by the Trump-affiliated business to rank their spending hold a total of $140 million in Trump coins.”
While the top 25 on the list were invited to an “ultraexclusive private VIP reception,” it appeared that the president only spent a short amount of time at the event and didn’t even stick around to hand out prizes to the top purchasers of his cryptocurrency.
“Trump could have at least given the top people their watches himself,” Pinto groused. “He didn’t.”
While some attendees told Wired that their overriding memory of the event would be the “warm welcome” they received as the gala kicked off, walking into the dinner was a whole different story.
Guests, which included one-time NBA star and Kardashian beau Lamar Odom, were greeted by a horde of booing protesters who chanted “shame, shame, shame” while holding up signs that read “Stop Crypto Corruption” and “Don the Con.”
