Florida isn’t just home to so-called Winter White House Mar-a-Lago anymore: A new generation of MAGA offspring is also flocking to the Sunshine State in pursuit of education. Lauren Sánchez, fiancée of Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos, announced Sunday that her son Evan Whitesell has committed to enrolling at the University of Miami next fall to study business.
“My heart is bursting,” she wrote on her Instagram Story, sharing a photo of Whitesell, the son she shares with ex-husband Patrick Whitesell, as a baby, wearing a tiny blazer. “Beyond proud of you. Love you.”
The account @xrdscollegedecisions reshared the photo in their own grid post.
Whitesell, who has not publicly made any political leanings known, will have a year to learn the ropes before welcoming Donald Trump‘s progeny to campus: Kai Trump, the president-elect’s granddaughter, announced in August via Instagram that she has made a verbal commitment to attend the institution as part of their women’s golf team. The younger Trump is just 17 and a junior in high school, so she won’t begin classes until Fall 2026.
Kai, who is the daughter of Trump’s eldest son Donald Trump Jr. and his ex-wife Vanessa Trump, thanked her parents for their support in her athletic journey, as well as Gramps.
“I would like to thank my Grandpa for giving me access to great courses and tremendous support,” she wrote as part of a lengthy Instagram caption about how “super excited” she is to attend the school.
While the Trumps’ attachment to Florida is well-known, Bezos also purchased a few multi-million dollar mansions in Florida’s exclusive Indian Creek enclave earlier this year, reportedly with plans for combining and renovating the properties, making him a future neighbor to Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Bezos has had something of a rocky relationship with Donald Trump in the past: In 2016, before he was elected for the first time, Trump promised that Amazon would have “problems” under his administration. For his part, Bezos said at the 2016 Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit that Trump’s behavior “erodes our democracy” and said that he would reserve a seat for Trump on one of his Blue Origin spaceships, in case he’d be open to effing right off to space.
Then, in 2018, Trump accused Amazon of hurting both the U.S. Postal Service and the country’s economy; in 2019, Amazon filed a lawsuit accusing Trump of blocking them from a $10 billion Department of Defense contract and accused him of using “the budget of DOD to pursue his own personal and political ends.” By 2021, a new government contract was inked with Amazon Web Services.
However, it seems that things between Trump and Bezos could be changing with the dawn of a second Trump term. Bezos stirred up controversy ahead of the 2024 presidential election when he decided that the Washington Post would not endorse a candidate; Bezos tweeted to congratulate Trump on his election win. “No nation has bigger opportunities,” he wrote. “Wishing @realDonaldTrump all success in leading and uniting the America we all love.”
Bezos has pledged to make a $1 million donation to Trump’s inauguration fund, and at an event last week, Bezos said that he’s “actually very optimistic this time around.” Trump “seems to have a lot of energy around reducing regulations,” he said, and offered to help out with that. He shared that he thinks Trump has “grown” in the last eight years. “What I’ve seen so far is he is calmer than he was the first time—more confident, more settled,” Bezos said.
He’ll find out in person on Wednesday, when he’s scheduled to meet with Trump at Mar-a-Lago. Could the Florida sun and their families’ shared future school help thaw the sometimes-frosty relationship between the two ahead of Trump’s second term?
