A year after supporters of President Donald Trump put down $100 deposits for a Trump-branded gold phone, not one has shipped. The latest terms for Trump Mobile now say the company does not guarantee that a device will ever be produced or offered for sale.
T1 Mobile LLC quietly updated its preorder terms and conditions last month, and the most recent version is dated April 6. Those terms say a preorder deposit gives buyers only a conditional chance if Trump Mobile later decides, at its sole discretion, to sell the device. The change lands after months of missed dates for the $500 phone, called the T1, which was first supposed to reach depositors in August 2025 before being pushed to November and then December.
At the end of last year, customer service representatives told Fortune the phone would arrive in “mid to late January,” blaming the delay on the government shutdown at the time. That date came and went. There is now no release date on the Trump Mobile website.
The phone has nonetheless remained a live product pitch. Trump Mobile’s site shows a gold shell with an American flag and the Trump Mobile name, and lists the handset as an Android device with a 6.78-inch AMOLED screen, 50-megapixel front and back cameras, a fingerprint sensor and “AI face unlock.” The phone was originally advertised as being made in America, but the website now says it will be “designed with American values in mind.”
The latest fine print has drawn attention because it undercuts the promise that inspired the deposits in the first place. As one customer, Carter Ryan, put it: “I’m paying $100 for the chance to maybe give you more money in the future, if you decide to make the product that I’m paying for in the first place?”
Trump Mobile has not only been selling the unreleased phone. The company is already offering refurbished Samsung phones and iPhones, along with service through its so-called 47 Plan for $47.45 per month. Last month, The Verge reported that the company received PTCRB certification and reportedly got authorization from the Federal Communications Commission, steps that can clear the way for a phone to move toward sale. But certification has not translated into a shipping date, and the deposit terms now make clear that one may never come.
For the people who put down money a year ago, the question is no longer when the T1 ships. It is whether the phone they were asked to reserve will ever exist at all.
