Trump Mobile is just Liberty Mobile with gold foil

Where is Trump’s phone? We will continue to talk about it every week. This week we’ll explain how the Presidential Telephone Company contacted an older company that actually runs the show.

We did Known for a long time That Trump Mobile was linked to Liberty Mobile, a telecommunications company that traded for years using a Liberty-themed brand to sell cheap cellphone plans to a conservative audience. It turns out that the two companies are closer to each other than they initially seemed. While we wait for the launch of the Trump Phone — perhaps next month, after being delayed from August — it’s worth understanding who’s actually behind the device, regardless of the name that will be written on the back.

“Liberty Mobile is secretly connected to Trump (Mobile),” Don Hendrickson told me. He knew that Hendrickson was one of three Trump Mobile executives, along with Eric Thomas and Pat O’Brien, who were the quasi-public faces of the company. The same three men also happen to be the owners of Liberty Mobile.

the Trump Mobile Terms of Use Let’s say it’s “Powered by Liberty Mobile Wireless LLC,” but that seems to devalue the relationship. During the same interview the executives showed me what they claim is A The near-final version of Trump’s phone itselfThomas calls Liberty Mobile the “enabler” of the Trump network, while Hendrickson calls it the “backbone.” To hear Hendrickson describe it further, it’s clear that Liberty Mobile not only handles all of Trump Mobile’s technical aspects and relationships with major carriers, but also many of its legal and financial obligations.

“Liberty Mobile is the company that’s registered with all the states, filters all the taxes, pays all the different E911 fees, universal service tax, different things that each state requires,” Hendrickson says. “Liberty has engineering staff, teams working with carriers, and algorithms that work to provide the best possible usability optimization to end users.”

It seems that without Liberty Mobile, there would be no Trump Mobile. But what? He is Freedom Mobile?

It’s an MVNO – or Mobile virtual network operator – Which means that it is a small carrier that pays a larger carrier for unused network capacity, allowing it to operate a network with minimal load.

Most MVNOs target lower price points or niche audiences. Liberty Mobile is focusing on the latter, with freedom-themed branding designed to appeal to conservatives, and based on the red, white and blue Liberty Bell logo.

It’s not the only freedom in the industry. Liberty Mobile should not be confused with the separate and now-defunct MVNO Liberty Wireless; communications infrastructure group Liberty Global; Or the various Liberty carriers operating within the Liberty Latin America group.

Its messages are less overtly political than Trump Mobile’s, and are open to targeting other audiences as well. I mentioned Last week Liberty Mobile previously operated Canelo Mobile, an MVNO co-branded between Liberty Mobile and Mexican boxer Canelo Álvarez, and marketed specifically to Mexican Americans.

As for its service, Liberty Mobile plans are cheaper than Trump’s $47.45 individual plan, ranging from $17 to $40 per month. It includes free international calls, but interestingly, not the other perks found in Trump’s more expensive option, such as roadside assistance, device cover, and telehealth.

Her online presence is minimal, with no social media accounts. that it Website It still lists the copyright date of 2025 in the footer, and appears either outdated or incomplete in other aspects as well. The “Phones” page is completely blank; The blog includes one 62-word entry about the Affordable Call Program with a photo of then-Vice President-elect J.D. Vance; The FAQ only contains lorem ipsum placeholder text.

But who is behind it? Here things seem more ambiguous. When I asked him, Thomas told me that he and Hendrickson, along with O’Brien, own Liberty and that they are the “core” of the company.

At first, this appears to have been achieved. In the summer of 2024, when Trump Mobile was just a gleam in their eye, O’Brien appeared on the podcast Wireless blessing He confirmed that his company – Surety Ventures – had acquired Liberty Mobile earlier that year. Warranty does not list Liberty Mobile Among its brands on its websitebut lists Drive America and Omega. These are the same companies that offer Roadside assistance and device protection For Trump Mobile customers.

But when I ask Hendrickson and Thomas whether Surety owns Liberty, they deny it. “No, Insurety is a third party,” Thomas says in no uncertain terms, while Hendrickson simply repeats, “No.” I emailed the couple asking for clarification, but did not receive a response in time for publication.

Their exact roles are also unclear. I asked directly about the specific job titles of Thomas and Hendrickson, but neither would confirm them on the call. Instead they said the “formal structure” would be emailed to me. Several weeks later, it still has not arrived, and a follow-up email requesting these details has not been acknowledged.

Neither O’Brien nor Thomas list Liberty Mobile or Trump on their LinkedIn profiles — nor are they mentioned LinkedIn page only I can find this to be a reasonable match for Hendrickson, although there are few details that I cannot confirm. O’Brien He is listed as president of the insurance company, a role he has apparently held since 2001. Thomas lists himself As founder and CEO of Vmedical, a medical technology company prominently mentioned on Liberty Mobile’s home page under “Services We Provide”, and described there as a “sister company.” Apparently it has been there since 2020, four years before the supposed takeover of the escrow company.

To confuse matters further, government business records list Matt Lopatin as the founder and CEO of Liberty Mobile, and don’t mention any of the others. So far I’ve struggled to find any detailed information on Lopatin, who hasn’t been publicly linked to Trump Mobile either. The oldest of these records also indicate that the company was first registered in 2018, but this contradicts what Hendrickson, who said it had “been in business since 2006”, told me. I can’t find any other evidence that Liberty Mobile was working before 2018.

Like many elements of Trump Mobile, researching Liberty Mobile raises more questions than answers. However, there is at least one thing about the company that is not at all surprising: its registered address. You’ll find Liberty Mobile in an apartment complex located at 16001 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida – also known as Trump Towers.

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