Donald Trump’s business has been criticized for auctioning off a summer internship at his real estate empire valued at $100,000, according to an advertisement on an online luxury bidding site.
The 10-week role on offer on the Charitybuzz website states that the winning intern will have the opportunity to have a 15-minute sit-down with three of the billionaire Republican frontrunner’s children – Donald Jr, Ivanka and Eric – to “pick their brains about how to be successful in the real estate & business world”.
It adds: “You will gain real-world, first-hand exposure to the various disciplines housed within The Trump Organization and have a series of power group lunches with each department head.”
The auctioning of the six-figure internship has come under fire for potentially excluding less privileged candidates from the most attractive opportunities.
Tanya de Grunwald, who campaigns for fair internships and is the founder of the careers website Graduate Fog, said: “I am concerned that the huge sum that the winning bidder is expected to donate ensures that this remains an extremely exclusive (and excluding) internship, available only to the children of the very rich.”
She further challenged the Charitybuzz website, writing to them in an email: “Please can you clarify how you justify keeping such a CV-enhancing opportunity out of reach from the vast majority of those young people who would benefit from it? As I’m sure you’re aware, very few families have a spare $100,000 lying around to buy their children such an expensive opportunity, even if the money does go towards a good cause.
“To many, it will seem as though Mr Trump and his family are simply entrenching privilege among people from backgrounds similar to their own, locking out everybody else,” De Grunwald wrote.
A spokesperson for the auction website replied, writing: “It is most certainly not our intention to ‘entrench’ privilege but rather to encourage those who are privileged to give to others and to provide as many opportunities as possible for them to do so.”
So far there have been two bids for the auction, with the current highest bid at $40,000.
Work duties include assisting with administrative and personal family responsibilities, answering phones, running errands, greeting clients and assisting at the Eric Trump Foundation’s charity events.
The internship up for auction is paid, the website states, and according to the website will help the Eric Trump Foundation benefit St Jude children’s research hospital.
The website the internship auction appears on is best known for allowing wealthy donors to bid huge sums for exclusive experiences such as celebrity meet-and-greets, TV and film set visits, and VIP concert tickets.
The Guardian has contacted Charitybuzz and the Trump campaign for comment.
