In February, an investment fund tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump put about $30 million into a small company that ran airport spas and waxing salons. Its own CEO says it was "so cash-strapped, close to bankrupt."

By September, the Trump administration had given that company's testing business two contracts worth nearly $40 million — one to screen travelers for Ebola at U.S. airports, and one to fight disease outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The company had never worked with Ebola. It had never done this kind of work outside the United States.

That is what ProPublica reported on November 9, drawing on federal contract records and interviews. And it is not the first time a company backed by the president's sons has landed money from the president's government.

The company: massages, manicures and "chakra beds"

The parent company is called XWELL. It started in 2006 as a chain of airport spas offering massages and facials. During the pandemic, under its old name XpresSpa Group, it got a $2 million federal pilot program to test travelers for COVID-19, and ProPublica reports it got $5.5 million from the CDC to test travelers for COVID-19.

That airport-testing business is now a subsidiary called XpresTest. But XWELL still made most of its money last year from waxing salons and airport spas that offer manicures, massages and "chakra beds," according to ProPublica.

And it was losing money. Before the Trump-linked fund came in, the whole company was valued at just $3 million.

The money: a fund run out of Trump Tower

The fund is called American Ventures. It was launched by Dominari Holdings, a small financial firm with offices inside Trump Tower in New York. After their father won a second term, Dominari's leaders hired Donald Jr. and Eric Trump as advisers and gave them a stake of more than 10% in the firm.

In February, American Ventures put about $30 million into XWELL, a company valued at $3 million. For that, the fund got a roughly 10% stake to start, plus an option to get millions more shares later.

ProPublica says it is unclear why the fund would put so much into XWELL.

The contracts: nearly $40 million, from two agencies

Then the government money started arriving:

• July: The CDC awarded XpresTest an $18.8 million contract for what a public notice called "Ebola entry screening services."
• September: XpresTest's $20 million State Department award began, for "rapid, effective, and coordinated outbreak response" to disease threats in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Together, those two awards are worth seven times all the government contracts XpresTest had ever received on its own before.

The stakes could not be higher. An Ebola outbreak in Congo has killed more than 5,000 people this year, and the federal government is trying to keep it from reaching the United States.

Even XWELL's CEO, Ezra Ernst, isn't sure his company can do the job. He told ProPublica that working overseas is "a new thing for us." Then he said it plainly:

"This is a risky contract. I'm not sure we can do it."

Jeremy Konyndyk, who helped oversee America's response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa, was blunter: "There are countless organizations in the world that have decades of experience doing this work. I have to wonder why the hell they're not going with someone who has actually done this before."

Why a spa company was even in the running

Under past presidents, the U.S. fought outbreaks overseas alongside the World Health Organization, and much of that work ran through the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Trump pulled the U.S. out of the World Health Organization, took apart USAID, and sharply cut back the CDC's work around the world, ProPublica reports. In their place, the State Department rolled out the "America First Global Health Strategy," which says foreign aid should be used to "promote American companies and American innovations abroad."

That plan is where XpresTest's $20 million came from. Other money from it went to better-known global aid groups, including International Medical Corps, Save the Children, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, with awards of $25 million to $35 million. And $20 million went to the airport-spa company's testing arm.

The State Department told ProPublica its award was made "through a competitive process." The CDC did not answer ProPublica's questions.

The payoff goes to the company the Trump fund bought into

In July, after the CDC contract came through, XWELL announced it would sell XpresTest, along with its spas, to a private facial-spa company for $13 million. Ernst said the government contracts helped set that price, and the contracts will go with XpresTest to the new owner.

So XWELL — the company the Trump-linked fund took a stake in — stands to make money from the Trump administration's contracts if the sale closes, even though it won't be doing any of the work.

XWELL also never announced either contract. Public companies are required to report big events that could move their stock price, like a large government contract, ProPublica notes — and XWELL had announced its much smaller COVID pilot back in 2021. Asked why it stayed quiet this time, Ernst gave several reasons, including that XpresTest might not be able to do the work at all.

A family pattern

A spokesperson for Donald Jr. and Eric Trump told ProPublica they are "merely passive, minority investors" in the fund, and had no "involvement in or knowledge regarding" any of the company's government contracts. Dominari's CEO said he had never seen the brothers use their family name to win one.

But the same fund keeps showing up next to government money:

• Drones: Powerus, a Florida drone company backed by American Ventures, got a contract worth up to $90 million from the U.S. Air Force five months after the Trumps' involvement was announced, ProPublica reports. The Wall Street Journal has also covered the company's rise.
• Minerals: Through the fund, the brothers are getting a stake in a group mining tungsten in Kazakhstan with U.S. government support.
• A Pentagon loan: ProPublica reported earlier this year that the Pentagon gave a small North Carolina startup linked to Trump Jr. a $620 million loan after a top aide to the president stepped in. The Pentagon denied any special treatment, and Trump Jr.'s spokesperson said he played no role.

The Washington Post has reported that the president's sons are investing heavily in defense businesses just as their father's administration pours money into them. We've written about the same pattern before: Donald Trump Jr. sits on the board of a gun seller that is lined up to profit from a rule change by Trump's own ATF. And Jared Kushner collects fees from Middle Eastern governments while negotiating for America.

Democrats won both the House and the Senate last week, and ProPublica reports the Trump family's business deals are expected to be a top focus. "When the government is corrupted for personal gain over the public interest, Americans lose trust and taxpayer dollars are wasted," Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, wrote to his colleagues.

What the records show

In February, a fund tied to Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump put about $30 million into XWELL, a nearly bankrupt airport-spa company worth $3 million. Between July and September, the Trump administration gave XWELL's testing arm two contracts worth nearly $40 million to fight Ebola and other diseases — work it had never done, in a country where it had never worked, ProPublica found. If its sale of that unit closes, XWELL stands to profit from those contracts — and it never publicly announced either one.

Source

Firm Linked to Trump's Sons Got Nearly $40 Million in Federal Contracts to Screen for Ebola and Other Diseases — ProPublica, November 9, 2026