// THE VERGE — MOBILE & WEB
Happy birthday to the Trump phone
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One year later, it’s still unclear if the T1 Phone will ever ship.
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From the day it was announced, on June 16th, 2025, the Trump phone sounded ridiculous. The T1 Phone 8002 (gold version), as it was officially called, was a combination of contradictory specs, product images that were clearly not photographs of a real phone, and the worrying requirement of a $100 deposit to secure a preorder of a $499 phone with no release date. But none of Trump Mobile’s outlandish announcements were as bold as the claim that the phone would be “designed and built in the United States.”
The US has next to no phone manufacturing infrastructure, few engineers with the required expertise, and little of the affordable, flexible mass labor that makes building electronics possible at scale in China, India, and across southeast Asia. Only one company currently makes a phone in the US, the Purism Liberty Phone, and it costs $1,999. The idea that Trump Mobile could build a phone for a quarter of the price in three months or less sounded impossible.
A year later, that’s proven to be true. The phone has changed form and shape so many times that I’ve had trouble keeping track of it — and I was keeping track of it, checking in every week with Trump Mobile, asking what the T1 Phone was, if it would actually be made in the States, and when it would ship. Because, a year on from its debut, it still hasn’t shipped.
But what is the Trump phone? I am asking that quite literally, because even after a year, I still have more questions than answers. Where is it really made? Why has it been repeatedly delayed? And will the regular folks who slapped down $100 for their golden phone ever see it arrive? I still don’t know, but I’ve spent the last 12 months trying to find out.