U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he attends UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., June 15, 2026. REUTERS/Evan Vucci TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
A new filing from President Donald Trump’s Truth Social company shows it expects payment from Freedom 250, a National Park Service-backed group responsible for staging America’s 250th birthday events.
Trump Media & Technology Group earned $175,000 from July through September for “advertisement of Freedom 250 events” and was still owed that full amount on Sept. 30, according to an amended merger filing the company submitted Thursday to the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The filing lists the ad deal among the company’s related-party transactions involving company insiders. It notes that Trump Media board member Meredith O’Rourke also sits on the board of the National Park Foundation, which created and runs Freedom 250.
O’Rourke has been Trump’s “Senior Advisor and National Finance Director” since 2022 and led his fundraising team in the 2024 election, according to her Trump Media biography. The same Trump fundraiser who sits on Trump Media’s board also sits on the board of the foundation that controls Freedom 250, the group that bought the ads.
MeidasNews has previously reported that Freedom 250 ran sponsored posts on Truth Social in July promoting its Patriot Games, a competition for teenage athletes.
The foundation formed Freedom 250 at the request of the National Park Service, foundation CEO Jeff Reinbold told the House Natural Resources Committee in February, according to an interim report by the committee’s Democrats.
Under federal law, the Interior secretary appoints the foundation’s board members.
The foundation told the committee’s Democrats in a June 3 letter that “the majority of Freedom 250’s operating funds come from federal funds appropriated by Congress specifically for the 250th anniversary commemorations,” according to the report. The group that owes Trump’s company runs mostly on taxpayer money Congress set aside for the anniversary.
The filing does not say whether the ads were bought with public or private money.
Trump’s stake in Trump Media is held by the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which owns 41% of the company’s shares, according to the filing. The president’s eldest son is its sole trustee and also sits on Trump Media’s board.
But Trump can revoke the trust at any time, The Associated Press reported in 2017, citing trust documents, and he moved all of his Trump Media shares into it in December 2024, according to NBC News. Although his son controls the shares, they sit in a trust Trump himself can end.
It isn’t the first time Truth Social got a platform at a Freedom 250-branded event.
Trump’s company sponsored a bout at the White House UFC fight on his birthday in June, where it was promoted on air as “the real voice of President Trump,” and the Freedom 250 logo appeared on the ring, according to the Democrats’ report.
The report said Freedom 250 did not pay for the fight, which UFC funded.
Trump Media filed the document for its planned merger with fusion energy company TAE Technologies, a deal the companies have said they aim to close by the end of 2026, according to a June merger update.
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