Where is Trump’s phone? We’ll keep talking about it every week, Except next week, when we take off until the New Year. We, as always, have reached out to ask about the whereabouts of the Trump phone. As always, we are still waiting for feedback. Meanwhile, we are wondering who is really behind the mobile company.
Yesterday’s announcement that one of Trump’s companies is merging with TAE Technologies raised an unexpected possibility: Is the company that gave up making phones in the US about to try building nuclear fusion power plants instead?
The simple answer is no. The long answer is that we don’t really know who is behind Trump Mobile — but it doesn’t come from Trump Media & Technology Group, the wing of the Trump empire that is suddenly really into fusion power.
Trump Mobile was announced by the Trump Organization in June, with a splashy quote and media presence from Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr., both executive vice presidents of the company.
The Trump Organization is run by Trump’s children, but owned by the US President through a trust, and consists of numerous privately owned Trump subsidiaries. Trump Media is not among them – it is a publicly traded company founded after Trump left office as a Medium for Truth social network. Trump previously held a majority stake in the company, although that too is now in a trust – managed by Don Jr., who is also on Trump Media’s board of directors.
So Trump Media does social networks and nuclear fusion, while the Trump Organization is making Trump phones, right? Not enough. According to the company’s press release, it may have announced the Trump phone, but it did so “with the Trump Mobile team,” indicating some degree of separation. The small print at the end makes the point even clearer:
Trump Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed, or sold by the Trump Organization or any of their respective affiliates or principals. T1 Mobile LLC uses the “Trump” name and trademark pursuant to the terms of a limited license agreement that may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.
So we have Trump Mobile, and now T1 Mobile LLC, neither of which appear to be part of the Trump Organization. Trump Mobile’s site has its own small print, which says much the same:
trumpS.M and all associated designs are trademarks of DTTM Operations LLC. trumpS.M Mobile, its products and services are not designed, developed, manufactured, distributed or sold by TrumpS.M Organization or any of their respective associates or principals. T1 Mobile LLC USES TRUMPS.M Name and trademark under the terms of a limited license agreement that may be terminated or canceled according to its terms.
But now there’s another company in the mix: DTTM Operations LLC. He Is Trump Organization and is the same company that Trump uses to register trademarks. It was DTTM Operations that applied for the trademarks of “T1” and “Trump” in the mobile space and owns similar Trump trademarks for sneakers, perfumes, spring water and others.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about Trump mobile ownership
The Trump Organization therefore owns the Trump Mobile trademark through DTTM operations. And it licenses those trademarks to T1 Mobile LLC, the company that actually operates Trump Mobile. So who is behind T1 Mobile LLC?
Registered in Florida in April, state records give only a Palm Beach address. There you’ll find an office building that houses a local bank, an air duct cleaning company and a urologist – as well as the offices of attorney Stuart Kaplan, who is listed as T1 Mobile’s registered agent.
Kaplan has not downplayed his involvement with Trump Mobile. He helped announce the mobile company in June, posting on Twitter that he had “partnered with Eric and Don Jr. Trump,” before repeating the familiar line that the phone would be manufactured in the US.
Kaplan also runs a risk management company, Kaplan & Sconzo, which provides risk assessment, investigations and private security services. Kaplan claims to have been an FBI special agent from 1995 to 2006, a fact he often takes advantage of in appearances on local and national news, including CNN, CBS, and Fox. Just this week he appeared on Fox News to discuss the investigation into the Brown University shootings and has appeared on TV over the past 12 months to discuss National Guard deployments, the death of Charlie Kirk, and Kash Patel’s performance as head of the FBI, and has made appearances for several years before that.
He is also happy to talk to Trump. Kaplan spoke to CNN about the FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago in 2022, spoke to CBS a year later about the arraignment, and has repeatedly appeared in the news to discuss other aspects of the president’s legal status, always presented as a former FBI agent and defense attorney. As far as I can tell, the paperwork for T1 Mobile LLC was filed on April 25, 2025. Kaplan has not appeared in the media to specifically discuss Trump since then, but most recently appeared on Florida station WPTV last December to discuss Trump’s allegations, complaining of weaponizing the FBI to do the “dirty work” of Trump’s opponents.
There’s a lot we still don’t know about Trump mobile ownership. We do not know what role Kaplan played in T1 Mobile LLC, beyond being the attorney who registered the company, nor when his relationship with Trump began. We don’t know who owns T1 Mobile LLC, or who runs the company. We don’t know how closely connected Trump’s sons or the Trump Organization are to the day-to-day operations, other than a small print suggestion that they are doing nothing more than licensing the Trump name.
But at least we know, as best we can tell, that the people who have repeatedly failed to release smartphones on time are not the same people who have been tasked with building the world’s first commercial nuclear fusion reactor next year.
Neither Trump Mobile, the Trump Organization nor Stuart Kaplan responded to my latest request for comment.
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