Trump Fires All Six Presidio Trust Board Members

President Trump fired all six members of the Presidio Trust’s board of trustees on Wednesday, following through on threats he made last year after signing an executive order targeting what the White House called unnecessary government entities.

Each board member received a termination letter. All six were Biden appointees.

The firings weren’t a complete surprise. The board said it had been expecting leadership changes and is now waiting to find out who Trump will name as replacements. “We have a long history of wonderful leaders serving the Presidio, and we look forward to welcoming and working with the new members,” the board said in a statement. Gracious words, given the circumstances.

The Presidio Trust is an odd target. Congress created it in 1996 to manage roughly 1,500 acres of federally owned property inside the Presidio, collecting rent and overseeing maintenance while also guiding development projects like the Letterman Digital Arts Center. It runs hotels, a golf course, and both commercial and residential leasing operations. The whole point was to make the park self-sustaining rather than dependent on congressional appropriations. And it worked. The Trust hasn’t drawn annual federal funding since 2013, pulling in $182 million in revenue in 2024 alone and contributing more than $1.1 billion in value to the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

So why is it on a hit list alongside international affairs organizations like the Inter-American Foundation and the United States Institute of Peace? The executive order instructed “unnecessary” government entities to cut staffing and activities “to the minimum presence and function required by law.” The Presidio Trust pushed back hard. In a 14-page response to the order last year, the agency laid out its financial independence and pointed to high occupancy rates across its properties. Board member Lynne Benioff, who was appointed during Trump’s first term, made the case that the Trust’s track record in attracting private investment had encouraged donors to fund park projects. That argument didn’t seem to move anyone in Washington.

The subtext here isn’t hard to read. Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi secured $200 million in funding for the Presidio through the Inflation Reduction Act for utility and infrastructure upgrades, according to KRON4. The Presidio sits squarely in her congressional district. Firing the board of an otherwise successful, financially independent park entity looks less like good governance and more like a message.

Still, the Trust’s own report framed the organization in terms Trump typically admires. “Run like a business, with a CEO and a Chief Business Officer, and overseen by a board appointed by the President of the United States, the Presidio Trust operates profitable businesses,” the report said, per the Chronicle. Commercial leasing. Residential leasing. Hotels. A golf course. Hard to see what’s broken.

No timeline has been announced for new appointments. The board’s day-to-day operations presumably continue in the interim, since the Trust’s enabling legislation requires it to function, but the leadership vacuum creates real uncertainty for a park that manages one of the most visited stretches of land in the Bay Area. The Presidio Trust declined to say more beyond its public statement.

This reporting from SFist first surfaced the details of Wednesday’s letters and the board’s response.

For San Franciscans who use the Presidio regularly, which is a lot of people, the practical stakes are real. The park’s financial model depends on stable management and the kind of long-term donor relationships that Benioff and others cultivated over years. New trustees appointed purely for political loyalty rather than park expertise could disrupt that. Or maybe the appointments come quickly and the whole thing blows over. Right now, though, nobody seems to know when that happens, or who’s next in line.