Pentagon Formally Accepts Qatar's $400 Million Boeing 747 as Gift for Trump's Personal and Presidential Use

The Department of Defense, under Secretary Pete Hegseth, formally accepted a Boeing 747-8 'flying palace' from the royal family of Qatar on May 21, 2025, after Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department issued a memo approving the acceptance on May 12. News of the planned gift first broke May 11, 2025. Trump defended the arrangement on Truth Social: 'Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done.' Legal scholars said the gift raised serious Foreign Emoluments Clause concerns because it flows to Trump personally rather than to the United States government: the Pentagon's plan calls for the jet to serve as Air Force One during Trump's presidency and then transfer to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation after he leaves office, a structure ethics experts said would let Trump personally benefit from a foreign gift while nominally routing it through a government agency first. Constitutional law scholars variously called the arrangement 'precisely the kind of gift the clause was written to prohibit,' a potentially 'impeachable' and 'fully corrupt act,' and characterized Bondi's approval memo as 'transparent baloney.' House Judiciary Committee Democrats led by Rep. Jamie Raskin opened an investigation and filed a resolution condemning the acceptance; the House also took up H.Res.410, expressing that Trump must submit all plans for the gift to Congress under the Emoluments Clause.

“Why should our military, and therefore our taxpayers, be forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars when they can get it for FREE from a country that wants to reward us for a job well done.” — Trump defending the Qatar jet gift on Truth Social after news broke of the planned acceptance.