Trump Mobile’s gold T1 phone finally arrives after repeated delays

Trump Mobile’s gold T1 phone reached buyers after a year of shifting delivery dates.

The phone was announced on June 16, 2025, at Trump Tower in New York City by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump alongside a new wireless service. Trump Mobile set the phone price at $499, demanded a $100 deposit for preorders, and paired it with a $47.45 monthly plan, a nod to Donald Trump’s status as the 45th and 47th president. The launch immediately raised ethics and conflict-of-interest concerns because the family business was moving into telecom while Donald Trump was president.

The wait stretched well past the original August 2025 shipping target. By late 2025, customers were being told different delivery dates, first Nov. 13 and then early December, even as the company removed a specific release month from its website and kept taking deposits. The branding also softened over time, shifting away from a blunt made-in-the-USA promise to language about American values and design. The company and the Trump Organization did not respond to repeated requests for comment about the delays or the manufacturing claims.

Building a smartphone entirely in the United States at that price would be difficult and costly. Purism’s Liberty Phone sells for about $2,000, is assembled by four people by hand in Carlsbad, California, and still relies on parts from China, South Korea, and India. Federal records later showed a smartphone filed under the trade name T1 was tested in late 2025 and received FCC authorization in January 2026.

By June 10, 2026, a teardown using a scanner and microscope showed the T1 was nearly identical to the HTC U24 Pro, a two-year-old model built with Chinese parts. Democratic lawmakers later urged the FTC to examine whether the made-in-USA claims were deceptive.