Trump’s return to the White House has transformed the federal government and upended the business of lobbying, creating a new class of Washington operatives that blur the lines between consulting, advocacy and journalism. 

Corporate and foreign interests that used to rely primarily on paid lobbyists to pitch their case to lawmakers and administration officials are instead pouring money into trying to get their cause promoted by a group of young, conservative influencers known to be close to Trump’s staff. 

A camera-ready pack of Gen-Z social-media natives—many of whom were too young to vote when Trump announced his first run for office—are reaping the rewards. They don’t work for traditional news outlets and are thus unshackled from newsroom ethics rules, such as the typical ban on accepting gifts worth more than $25. They don’t have to follow the disclosure laws that apply to big-money super PACs or lobbyists. And they have large followings eager to hear pro-Trump views, a gold mine for those looking to sway both Washington and the public.

Israel made plans over the past year to spend $900,000 on an influencer campaign with a U.S. audience, according to disclosure documents, as Israel fights negative sentiment on the right. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with conservative social-media stars on at least two of his visits.

The solar energy and health industries have paid thousands of dollars to influencers to support their interests, according to people who have been offered or participated in such deals. Qatar, beverage interests and others have courted those with online political followings.

MAGA influencers are turning access to the White House into lucrative new businesses. Trump’s former campaign manager Brad Parscale has pivoted from campaigning to running a prominent firm that specializes in connecting influencers to companies and others willing to pay for their posts.

Bruesewitz’s comments had focused attention on the marijuana reclassification issue. In August, boxer Mike Tyson reposted Bruesewitz’s remarks that said reclassification would be “well received.” In October, Bruesewitz, who has no role in the administration and works for an outside political group aligned with the president, told The Free Press it would be a “politically savvy move.” 

A White House spokesperson said “it’s essential that we meet Americans where they are and allow media from across the ideological spectrum to cover the White House,” and that the administration “is adapting to the new media landscape in 2025.” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump heard from many different people about reclassifying marijuana and decided doing it was “the best policy and political decision to make for the country.”

Party by the pool

One of the largest historic spenders on Washington lobbying, Qatar, is pursuing an influencer strategy that appears to be paying dividends. In November, it sponsored trips to Doha for several pro-Trump social-media personalities, promising interactions with members of Congress who were also there and celebrities—and VIP Formula One tickets with paddock access that regularly go for more than $10,000 apiece.

“Thanksgiving looking a little different this year,” former journalist Caitlin Sinclair wrote on Instagram alongside a photo of a glimmering hotel pool at night, and the outside of a Qatari outpost of Cipriani, the classic New York Italian spot, where partygoers inside ate oysters while a woman in a sequin dress sang “Stand by Me.” 

Those who went to Doha said they weren’t paid to post specific messages about the trip, but some offered glowing reviews. Rob Smith, a veteran and gay pro-Trump commentator, Instagrammed a photo of himself beaming next to Serena Williams. “TBH I had ZERO clue that [Doha] was such a cultural hub,” he wrote in the caption.

In another post after the trip, Smith, who has close to half a million followers on X, said his visit had been “eye-opening” and that he wanted to help “keep America strong by understanding and highlighting the unique and mutually beneficial military and financial partnerships that we share with Qatar.”

After Trump ally Laura Loomer, who is critical of Qatar, posted online about the influencers who took the trip and raised questions over whether they were “shilling for Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood,” Smith found himself in an online firestorm.

“I think it was an attempt to pre-emptively discredit anything I have to say in the future,” Smith said, adding he thought it would benefit him “to go and experience something for myself.”

The trip “provided an opportunity to gain firsthand insight into Qatar and to ask questions directly to Qataris, rather than relying on inaccurate or misleading narratives,” said Ali Al-Ansari, a spokesperson at the Embassy of Qatar in Washington. 

Loomer herself has been suspected of being paid for some of her positions, but she has denied taking money for specific social-media posts. She has received funding from those with politically aligned interests, according to people familiar with the matter.

The influencer campaigns are part lobbying effort and part traditional advertising, but because the players are speaking directly to their audience, they can appear more casual and more authentic than traditional efforts. People respond differently to advertisements than to messages that they think are authentic opinions, campaign finance experts said.

“It becomes very easy for a foreign or a corporate interest group to significantly shape Americans’ views of political issues in secret if they can launder their message through an army of influencers,” said Brendan Fischer, director at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center.

Attention from White House

The campaigns frequently seek to influence White House policy. 

While many traditional lobbyists and the press have had their access to Trump curtailed during his second term, Trump aides follow the work of certain influencers online, inviting them to the West Wing for briefings with Cabinet officials and top White House officials, such as Leavitt, the press secretary. 

Those known to have a good relationship with Trump’s assistant Natalie Harp and other White House officials can command thousands of dollars more per post than others, according to a person familiar with the business. If Harp notices a policy position picking up steam among well-watched social-media stars, she’s known to print out the relevant posts and give them to the president as evidence of what prominent supporters are saying.

Lobbyists and PR professionals who hire influencers in Washington said campaigns can range from a few hundred dollars a post to tens of thousands of dollars. Some popular accounts have doubled or tripled the price-per-post they net during the Trump administration as demand soars. 

Sinclair, who is 29, received $67,500 in the past year from the MAHA PAC to host videos about issues of interest to the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. aligned movement, according to the organization’s financial disclosures. “Creators have the attention right now,” she said in an interview. “In 2026, I believe attention is going to be the currency of power.”

CJ Pearson, a 23-year-old conservative who advised the Trump campaign on reaching young voters, is in regular touch with top Trump officials, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and calls Leavitt a personal friend. He texted with Dan Bongino, the deputy director of the FBI who stepped down this month, about football at the University of Alabama, where he dropped out of college a few years ago.

The Solar Energy Industries Association hired him to promote solar power for conservatives, after Trump routinely criticized renewable power. In a September video, standing next to a sunny window, Pearson said that solar is the ultimate symbol of freedom, comparing being dependent on electric power to Biden-era pandemic restrictions. 

“There’s a natural inclination on the right to be against” solar energy, Pearson said in an interview, given Republican efforts to cut green energy tax credits.

The solar campaign didn’t change policy, but Pearson has inked so many deals he launched his own firm to help connect peers with companies seeking influence. “I’ve never seen more interest in working with creators than right now,” he said. 

He has celebrated his growing business by throwing lavish parties, renting out a nightclub in Washington over Halloween weekend for a costumed bash where “Hustlin’” rapper Rick Ross appeared and Pearson gave away orange-and-black MAGA hats. (One White House aide arrived in a reflective construction vest labeled “BALLROOM CONSTRUCTION TEAM,” the Daily Mail reported.)

Courting influencers “is probably the best use of time that you can spend as a policy person or campaign person,” said Sean Spicer, Trump’s onetime press secretary who has pivoted to hosting a daily streaming news show on YouTube. 

Federal law mandates lobbyists and PACs register with the federal government and disclose basic information such as how much money is being spent, but most rules don’t cover social-media personalities, who play a new, murky role in politics.

At times, firms disclose they are paying influencers in a general way but don’t report who receives the payments.

Many transactions with influencers are brokered through informal deals with few details in writing, influencers and lobbyists said.

The influencers take money while also acting as providers of information and allies of the president. The laws that do apply to influencers, such as Federal Trade Commission rules mandating that paid ad campaigns are labeled as such, are lightly enforced.

Influencer Debra Lea, 25, launched to internet fame after a video criticizing modern feminism. She has at various times acted as an adviser to government officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.); questioned administration officials at White House briefings as a member of the White House approved “new media”; and been paid to promote everything from the solar industry to the prediction market platform Kalshi. She’s a frequent Fox News commentator, and she has appeared there as a “brand voice” for the Parler social-media site.

In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, she said the most she has made from a single contract was more than $20,000 to represent them during TV hits, but she declined to name the company.

She briefly broke with Johnson when she was paid by the solar industry to try to save credits in the GOP megabill. “The Big Beautiful Bill passing through Congress is definitely big but it can be a lot more beautiful,” she said in one video. The bill, signed into law on July 4, phased out the solar credits.

In November, Trump posted that one of Lea’s Fox News appearances had been “GREAT.” Several friends in the administration reached out to congratulate her, she said.

“I girl bossed my way to the top, literally from TikTok to the White House,” Lea said in the interview.

She has said she isn’t worried about the ethics of working in so many lanes. The only problem, she said, might be that since she is involved in so many different things she could be considered not an expert in any one issue. “My conflict comes with being spread thin by doing everything,” Lea said. 

Her agent, Reid Pakula, said most deals his company, IF Management, does with political influencers range between $5,000 and $20,000 per post. 

NASA and marijuana

People with personal interests before Trump have also started testing the waters with an influencer strategy. 

After billionaire Jared Isaacman saw the administration pull his nomination to become NASA administrator after Trump’s blow up with Elon Musk, he hosted independent pro-MAGA commentators Benny Johnson and Nick Sortor at a private Montana hangar where he keeps a fleet of fighter jets. 

While his allies pushed for him to be renominated, Isaacman treated Johnson and Sortor to rides in the jets and a tour of his private, Star Wars-themed “cantina” bar that overlooks the planes. It was “one of the best days of my life,” Johnson said in a video he posted online.

In the weeks after the trip, Johnson and others advocated online for Isaacman’s renomination. Johnson called him “the man who could save NASA.” Isaacman said he didn’t pay the men beyond covering the trip and cost of flying the jets. He was eventually renominated by Trump and in December was confirmed to run the agency.

While companies have for years experimented with paying influencers, Trump’s 2024 campaign to return to Washington, which was powered in part by social media, expanded the scale of such efforts. 

In July 2024, a political committee backing a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana in Florida paid ex-entertainment lawyer and commentator Rogan O’Handley $59,000, according to its filings. O’Handley, who posts to more than 10 million followers across platforms under the name @DC_Draino, posted on Aug. 8, 2024, in favor of Trump reclassifying the drug. A legalization policy was one of several that would “win him young voters in record numbers,” O’Handley wrote on X. On Aug. 26, the pro-marijuana initiative paid him an additional $105,000.

O’Handley said in a statement that the money “was for multiple posts on my Instagram (not X) and I openly disclosed on each post that it was paid for.” He added, “I have been a proponent of decriminalizing marijuana for years.”

Soda pitch

Democrats have had limited success in developing a parallel network of influencers. The Biden-Harris 2024 campaign did pay influencer firms, and Democratic strategists are trying to build an ecosystem of influencers to support liberal politics. Groups such as Chorus and Double Tap Democracy are trying to incubate and train a new generation of influencers on the left.

Foreign governments are meanwhile turning their attention to courting and hiring those on the right.

Israel’s Netanyahu has sat down at least twice with American podcasters and influencers in the past year. At Blair House across the street from the White House in April—where his guests included Spicer, MAHA advocate Jessica Reed Kraus and podcaster Tim Pool—he urged support for U.S. intervention in Iran, which Trump would eventually carry out in June. 

At the Israeli Consulate in New York during a September meeting timed to the United Nations General Assembly, Netanyahu called on the influencers to fight back against anti-Israel sentiment on the right. “We have to fight back. How do we fight back? Our influencers,” Netanyahu said, according to a video posted on Instagram by Lea, who attended. “That community, they’re very important.” 

In September, a newly formed firm called Bridges Partners registered as a foreign agent for the government of Israel and disclosed plans for a $900,000 influencer program dubbed “Esther Project.” 

The project, which started during the summer of 2025 and was scheduled to continue until the end of the year, would cost up to $250,000 a month when it was in full swing, regulatory disclosures said. 

A representative for the Israeli government didn’t respond to a request for comment.

A growing number of prominent Republicans are launching new businesses that pay influencers. One, Urban Legend, boasts a proprietary platform where influencers can log in and choose from a menu of options available for politically connected sponsored content. The company’s leader, Ory Rinat, was a special government employee during the early months of the administration but has since left, White House officials said.

The mechanics of the new influence campaigns spilled into the open in March when Influenceable, a company co-founded by Parscale that hires conservative influencers, sent a request to several X accounts asking them to criticize an effort in several states to prohibit using food stamps to buy soda. The Influenceable offer instructed recipients to post about “the dangers of government overregulation” in restricting soda on food aid, and included a payment of up to $1,000. Among the suggested posts was a photo of Trump drinking Diet Coke while riding in a golf cart. 

Several influencers took up the offer, leading to a conspicuous rush of posts online about soda—until Sortor, the pro-MAGA commentator, posted the pitch from Influenceable online, saying that it was a dirty tactic meant to manipulate people. It led some accounts to delete their posts on the subject. The firm declined to comment on the effort or identify the client sponsoring it.

“The eyeballs have moved to social, so now more money moves to social,” Parscale said.