SoftBank gave $50M to Trump library months before scoring federal data center lease

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SoftBank donated $50 million to the Trump Presidential Library in January, shortly before the company announced a deal to lease federal land in Portsmouth, Ohio, for a large data center. The Japanese tech conglomerate disclosed the timeline after Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Richard Blumenthal, sent a letter in June raising concerns about potential bribery. The Ohio data center lease was announced by the Trump administration approximately two months after the library donation was made. Sen. Warren questioned whether the donation and the subsequent federal deal were truly unrelated. SoftBank has not publicly addressed the lawmakers' allegations of impropriety.

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