Where is Trump’s phone? We will talk about it every week. This week, we explain how the president’s phone company connects with the legacy company that actually runs the show.
We’ve long known that Trump Mobile has been associated with Liberty Mobile, a carrier that for years has traded on liberty-themed branding to sell cheap cell phone plans to the conservative crowd. It turns out that the two companies are even closer to each other than originally thought. And as we await the launch of the Trump phone — potentially as early as next month, as it’s been delayed since August — it’s worth understanding who’s really behind the device, regardless of the name emblazoned on its back.
“Liberty Mobile is umbilically connected to Trump (Mobile),” Don Hendrickson tells me. And he would know: Hendrickson is one of three Trump Mobile executives, along with Eric Thomas and Pat O’Brien, who have been the company’s semi-public faces. And these same three men also happen to be the owners of Liberty Mobile.
Trump Mobile’s terms of use say it’s “powered by Liberty Mobile Wireless LLC,” but that seems to play down the relationship. During the same interview, in which executives showed me what they claim is a near-final version of the Trump phone itself, Thomas calls Liberty Mobile the “enabler” of the Trump network, while Hendrickson calls it the “backbone.” To hear Hendrickson’s description continue, it’s clear that Liberty Mobile handles not only all of Trump Mobile’s technical infrastructure and relationships with larger carriers, but also many of its legal and financial obligations.
“Liberty Mobile is a company registered in every state that charges all the taxes, pays all the different E911 fees, universal service tax, different things that each state requires,” Hendrickson says. “Liberty has technical staff, teams that work with careers, algorithms that work to provide end users with the best possible usage optimization.”
It seems there would be no Trump Mobile without Liberty Mobile. But what is Liberty Mobile?
It’s an MVNO – or mobile virtual network operator – meaning it’s a small operator that pays a larger operator for unused network capacity, allowing it to run the network with minimal overhead.
Most MVNOs focus on lower prices or niche audiences. Liberty Mobile aims for the latter with a liberty-themed brand designed to appeal to conservatives, leaning on the red, white and blue Liberty Bell logo.
It’s not the only Liberty in the business. Liberty Mobile is not to be confused with the separate and now defunct MVNO Liberty Wireless; telecommunications infrastructure group Liberty Global; or the various Liberty carriers that operate within the Liberty Latin America group.
Its messages are less overtly political than those of Trump Mobile and are open to other audiences. Last week I reported that 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’s plans are cheaper than Trump’s single $47.45 plan, ranging from $17 to $40 a month. They include free international calls, but interestingly not the other benefits found in the more expensive Trump variant, such as assistance service, device coverage and telehealth.
His online presence is minimal, I couldn’t find any social media accounts. His website still lists a copyright date of 2025 in the footer, and also appears either outdated or incomplete in other ways. The “phones” page is completely blank; the blog contains a single 62-word entry on the Affordable Connection Program with a picture of then-Vice President-elect JD Vance; and the FAQ consists of nothing more than lorem ipsum placeholder text.
But who is behind it? This is where things get even more opaque. When I ask, Thomas tells me that he and Hendrickson, along with O’Brien, own Liberty and are the “core” of the company.
At first, this appears to be true. In the summer of 2024, when Trump Mobile was just a twinkle in their eye, O’Brien appeared on the podcast Advantage of wireless connection and confirmed that his company – Securety Ventures – bought Liberty Mobile earlier that year. Securety does not list Liberty Mobile among its brands on its website, but it does list Drive America and Omega. These are the same companies that provide Trump Mobile customers with roadside assistance and device protection.
But when I ask Hendrickson and Thomas if Securety owns Liberty, they deny it. “No, Securety is a third party,” Thomas says without hesitation, while Hendrickson simply repeats “No.” I emailed the pair asking for an explanation, but did not receive a reply in time for publication.
Their exact roles are also unclear. I asked directly about the specific job titles of Thomas and Hendrickson, but neither confirmed them during the call. Instead I was told that I would be emailed an “official structure”. A few weeks later it still hasn’t arrived and my follow up email asking for these details has not been acknowledged.
Neither O’Brien nor Thomas list Liberty Mobile or Trump on their LinkedIn profiles — and it’s also not mentioned on the only LinkedIn page I’ve found that’s a plausible match for Hendrickson, though it’s so skimpy on details that I’m not sure. However, O’Brien is listed as president of Securety, a role he has apparently held since 2001. Thomas is listed as the founder and CEO of Vmedical, a medical company prominently mentioned on Liberty Mobile’s home page under the heading “Services We Provide” and described as a “sister company.” It’s apparently been there since 2020, four years before Securety’s supposed acquisition.
To further confuse matters, state business records list Matt Lopatin as the founder and CEO of Liberty Mobile and do not mention anyone else. So far, I’ve been trying to find some detailed information on Lopatin, who has also not been publicly associated with Trump Mobile. The oldest of these records also indicates that the company was first incorporated in 2018, but that contradicts what I was told by Hendrickson, who said he “has been in business since 2006.” I have found no other evidence that Liberty Mobile was in operation prior to 2018.
Like many elements of Trump Mobile, digging into Liberty Mobile raises more questions than answers. Still, at least one thing about the company is not at all surprising: its registered address. Liberty Mobile can be found in an apartment complex at 16001 Collins Avenue in Sunny Isles Beach, Florida – also known as Trump Towers.
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