Public Land Swaps for Private Gain: How the Trump Administration Is Trading Away Public Lands for Corporate Benefit

Over the past year, the Trump administration has quietly advanced land exchanges that transfer public lands into private hands. After bipartisan backlash forced President Donald Trump’s congressional allies to remove public land sell-off provisions from the final version of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in 2025, lower-profile land swaps may be emerging as a tool for selling off public lands to well-connected corporate interests.¹

Land exchanges—the voluntary trade of land of equal value between the government and private landowners—can be legitimate tools for improving conservation outcomes, expanding public access, and resolving management challenges.² In fact, land exchanges conducted by the federal government are required by law to benefit the public interest. Yet a series of recent or proposed swaps sidestep environmental review, limit chances for public notice and input, and raise questions about whether the public interest or corporate interests are being prioritized. Above all, these transactions may be normalizing a model of public lands governance that gives outsize influence to the wealthy and well-connected.

In 2024, a real estate developer called “Sanctuary at Yosemite”—owned through a series of limited-liability companies by Kingsbarn Realty Capital—purchased a property bordering Yosemite National Park in California, with plans to construct a private resort. The Trump administration is now considering an exchange that would give a strip of the park to a company operated by Kingsbarn for construction of a private road connecting the resort to the park.³

The land parcel’s previous owners repeatedly lobbied and later sued the Bush and Obama administrations for their right to construct a road through the park. Both administrations rejected these requests, and in 2012, a federal court held that the owners had no right to build new roads through Yosemite.⁴

Yet the Trump administration’s zeal for partnering with corporate allies may represent a new opportunity for construction of the road. The CEO of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, Jeff Pori, had no known history of donating to political campaigns until October 2024, when he began making regular donations to President Trump.⁵ Kingsbarn and its lawyer issued a statement saying that they were working directly with National Park Service (NPS) staff on the exchange, yet the administration denied allegations that the transfer was politically motivated.⁶ Anonymous sources have described the deal as a top priority for Trump administration officials.⁷

Reportedly, the proposal is currently in the discussion and review stage, and the appraisal process is ongoing.⁸ Kingsbarn has not yet proposed the size or location of the parcel it would exchange.⁹ Transferring public lands to benefit resort developers and give privileged, private access to the national park could change the character of Yosemite—a crown jewel of America’s National Park System that receives more than 4 million visitors a year—and set a dangerous precedent for other treasured parks.¹⁰

On June 1, 2026, the Trump administration approved a land exchange with SpaceX in Texas that provides 715 acres of the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge for expansion of the company’s rocket production and launching facilities in Starbase, Texas.¹¹ In exchange, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will receive 683 acres of formerly SpaceX-owned land, some of which will expand the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge about 20 miles north.¹²

Discussions of the swap began as early as April 2025, when SpaceX CEO Elon Musk served as one of the president’s closest advisers and leader of the Department of Government Efficiency.¹³ According to an internal government email obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, during these early discussions, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service developed the “most expedited schedule possible” to finalize the deal and transfer the land.¹⁴

The land being given to SpaceX in the swap holds unique ecological, cultural, and historic importance. It is sacred to the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation and includes parts of the Palmito Ranch Battlefield National Historic Landmark—the site of the final battle of the Civil War.¹⁵ The area also includes critical wetlands and habitat for threatened local wildlife populations, including shorebirds and endangered ocelots, which would likely be affected by the expansion of existing SpaceX facilities. Each rocket launch sends rocks, sheet metal, and fiery debris into the air, damaging habitat and sometimes causing small fires.¹⁶ A 2024 report found that after one rocket launch at the Starbase facility, every monitored shorebird nest near the launch site either suffered damage or had missing eggs.¹⁷

The National Park Service is reportedly considering a land swap in Prince William Forest Park in Virginia that would transfer 36 acres of the park to Highland Digital, a data center development company, for the construction of four 100-foot-tall data centers and an electric substation.¹⁸ Based on a similar project proposal from Highland Digital earlier this year in Prince William Forest Park, each data center could be more than 400,000 square feet.¹⁹ If completed, the project might mark the first time a public land swap has been conducted for the purpose of building data centers.²⁰ In exchange, Highland Digital would give the NPS a 73-acre inholding on the northern border of the park that has been privately owned since before the park was created in 1936.²¹ The company’s inholding, which is dense with wetlands, is poorly suited for development, compared with the more developable tract it hopes to gain from the Park Service.²²

Northern Virginia already contains more than 250 data centers—the highest concentration in the world.²³ The consideration of a federal land swap comes following Highland Digital’s failed attempt to rezone an area adjacent to the park through Prince William County earlier this year. The company withdrew its request for public hearing on that project in May following local pushback.²⁴ Local conservation groups such as the Prince William Conservation Alliance fiercely oppose the swap, arguing it would use federal public assets to fast-track commercial infrastructure at the expense of protected areas.²⁵

The massive data center infrastructure would likely affect visitor experience and the ecological health of the area. It would sit near the headwaters of Quantico Creek, one of the most pristine waterways in Northern Virginia, which could be impacted by water consumption or pollution from the data centers.²⁶ Additionally, if the facility is air-cooled, the extended, low-frequency hum could deter recreational visitors and disrupt wildlife populations.²⁷ The park currently receives about 355,000 visitors per year, who contribute about $19 million to the local economy.²⁸

To facilitate the federal land swap deal, Highland Digital hired Jeff Small, principal at the consulting firm 76 Group.²⁹ President Trump appointed Small as senior adviser to the secretary of the interior during his first administration, and Small previously spent 15 years as staff for Republican members of Congress, where he worked on natural resource policy, including helping to pass legislation that authorized the Resolution Copper mine land swap.³⁰

In March 2026, the Trump administration completed the transfer of 2,400 acres of U.S. Forest Service land from the Tonto National Forest in Arizona to international mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP in exchange for 5,400 noncontiguous acres of ecologically and culturally important land.⁴⁵ The public lands given away include Oak Flat, which has served as a site of religious and cultural significance to the San Carlos Apache Tribe and other Tribes in the region since time immemorial.⁴⁶ Legislative language tucked into the defense budget bill in 2014 directed the land exchange, but the Trump administration completed the environmental review and has played an outspoken role in pushing the project to completion.⁴⁷

As proposed, the mine would leave a 1.8-mile-wide crater and be more than 1,000 feet deep. The endeavor could threaten Oak Flat and compromise habitat for endangered species such as the Arizona hedgehog cactus.⁴⁸ On purely economic terms, the transfer is a losing deal for the public: The underground mine is predicted to generate an amount of copper worth $150 billion at today’s copper prices, while the land given to the Forest Service is valued at just $9.8 million.⁴⁹ The federal government will earn no royalties on the copper, which is likely to be exported to Southeast Asia for smelting.⁵⁰ A 2026 poll found that 67 percent of likely Arizona voters oppose the Resolution Copper mine.⁵¹

The Trump administration’s recent and pending actions in Yosemite, the Lower Rio Grande, Prince William Forest Park, and the Tonto National Forest suggest a concerning pattern of land swaps that trade valuable public lands for private enrichment. Whether recklessly leasing public lands across the West to oil and gas companies, removing conservation protections from nearly 90 million acres, or eliminating basic safeguards for clean water and wildlife, the usage of land swaps to sell out public lands for corporate gain should be cause for alarm.⁵² Public lands are a treasured national inheritance that belong to all Americans, not commodified assets to be sold or traded with the wealthiest and most powerful.