Trump Mobile is simply Liberty Mobile in gold foil

Where’s the Trump cellphone? We’re going to maintain speaking about it each week. This week, we clarify how the presidential cellphone firm connects to an older firm that’s actually working the present.

We’ve lengthy recognized that Trump Mobile was linked to Liberty Mobile, a service that’s traded for years utilizing freedom-themed branding to promote low-cost cell plans to a conservative crowd. Turns out, the 2 companies are even nearer to 1 one other than it had initially appeared. And as we anticipate the launch of the Trump cellphone — probably as quickly as subsequent month, having been delayed from August — it’s price understanding who’s truly behind the machine, whatever the title that might be emblazoned on its again.

“Liberty Mobile is umbilically connected to Trump [Mobile],” Don Hendrickson tells me. And he would know: Hendrickson is without doubt one of the three Trump Mobile executives, alongside Eric Thomas and Pat O’Brien, who’ve been the semi-public faces of the corporate. And the identical three males simply occur to be the house owners of Liberty Mobile, too.

The Trump Mobile terms of use say that it’s “powered by Liberty Mobile Wireless LLC,” however that seems to be underselling the connection. During the identical interview through which the executives confirmed me what they declare is a near-final model of the Trump cellphone itself, Thomas calls Liberty Mobile the “enabler” for the Trump community, whereas Hendrickson calls it the “backbone.” To hear Hendrickson describe it additional, it’s clear that Liberty Mobile handles not solely all of Trump Mobile’s technical again finish and relationships with the bigger carriers, but in addition a lot of its authorized and monetary obligations.

“Liberty Mobile is the company that is registered with all the states, that clears all the taxes, pays all of the different E911 fees, the universal service tax, the different things that each one of the states require,” Hendrickson says. “Liberty has the engineering staff, the teams that work with the carriers, the algorithms that work with giving the best possible optimization of usage to the end users.”

It looks as if with out Liberty Mobile, there can be no Trump Mobile. But what is Liberty Mobile?

It’s an MVNO — or cell digital community operator — which means it’s a small service that pays a bigger service for unused community capability, permitting it to run a community with minimal overhead.

Most MVNOs goal lower cost factors or area of interest audiences. Liberty Mobile is targeted on the latter, with freedom-themed branding designed to attract in conservatives, leaning on a Liberty Bell brand in purple, white, and blue.

It’s not the one Liberty within the trade. Liberty Mobile is to not be confused with the separate, and now defunct, MVNO Liberty Wireless; the telecoms infrastructure group Liberty Global; or the varied Liberty carriers that function beneath the Liberty Latin America group.

Its messaging is much less overtly political than Trump Mobile’s, and it’s open to focusing on different audiences too. I reported final week that Liberty Mobile beforehand ran Canelo Mobile, an MVNO co-branded between Liberty Mobile and the Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez, and marketed particularly towards Mexican Americans.

As for its service, Liberty Mobile’s plans are cheaper than the only $47.45 Trump plan, starting from $17 to $40 monthly. They embody free worldwide calling, however curiously not the opposite perks discovered within the dearer Trump possibility, like roadside help, machine cowl, and telehealth.

Its on-line presence is minimal, with no social media accounts I might discover. Its website nonetheless lists a copyright date of 2025 within the footer, and seems both outdated or incomplete in different respects too. The “phones” web page is fully clean; the weblog features a single, 62-word entry on the Affordable Connectivity Program with an image of then-VP-elect JD Vance; and the FAQ consists of nothing however lorem ipsum placeholder textual content.

But who’s behind it? Here, issues are much more opaque. When I ask, Thomas tells me that he and Hendrickson, alongside O’Brien, each personal Liberty and are “the core of” the corporate.

At first, that appears to bear out. In summer season 2024, when Trump Mobile was however a glimmer of their eyes, O’Brien appeared on the podcast The Boon of Wireless and confirmed that his firm — Ensurety Ventures — had acquired Liberty Mobile earlier that yr. Ensurety doesn’t listing Liberty Mobile among its brands on its website, however does listing Drive America and Omega. Those occur to be the identical firms that present roadside assistance and device protection to Trump Mobile clients.

But once I ask Hendrickson and Thomas if Ensurety owns Liberty, they deny it. “No, Ensurety is a third party,” Thomas says, in no unsure phrases, whereas Hendrickson merely repeats “No.” I’ve emailed the pair to ask for clarification, however hadn’t obtained a response in time for publication.

Their precise roles are unclear too. I requested straight for Thomas’ and Hendrickson’s particular job titles, however neither would affirm them over the decision. Instead they stated I’d be despatched an “official structure” by e-mail. Several weeks later that also hasn’t arrived, and my follow-up e-mail asking for these particulars has not been acknowledged.

Neither O’Brien nor Thomas listing Liberty Mobile or Trump on their LinkedIn profiles — and it’s additionally not talked about on the only LinkedIn page I can discover that’s a believable match for Hendrickson, although it’s so scant on particulars that I can’t ensure. O’Brien is listed because the president of Ensurety, although, a task he’s apparently held since 2001. Thomas lists himself as a founder and CEO of Vmedical, a medtech firm that’s talked about prominently on the Liberty Mobile homepage beneath the header “Services we provide,” and described there as a “sister company.” He’s apparently been there since 2020, 4 years earlier than the supposed Ensurety acquisition.

To confuse issues additional, state enterprise data all listing Matt Lopatin because the founder and CEO of Liberty Mobile, and make no point out of any of the others. So far I’ve struggled to search out any detailed info on Lopatin, who hasn’t been publicly linked to Trump Mobile both. The earliest of these data additionally recommend that the corporate was first registered in 2018, however that contradicts what I used to be advised by Hendrickson, who stated it’s “been in the business since 2006.” I can discover no different proof that Liberty Mobile was in operation previous to 2018.

Like so many parts of Trump Mobile, digging into Liberty Mobile brings up extra questions than solutions. Still, a minimum of one factor in regards to the firm isn’t shocking in any respect: its registered deal with. You’ll discover Liberty Mobile in an residence advanced at 16001 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida — also referred to as Trump Towers.

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