Where is the elusive Trump phone? This question continues to linger, and we are committed to addressing it every week. Despite our persistent inquiries, responses about the Trump phone’s location have ceased. However, a tip from a reader may have unveiled the original inspiration for the T1 model.

Months ago, when the Trump phone existed only as a speculative render and an unclear spec sheet, we embarked on a quest to determine its possible design inspiration. Today, following two spec updates and a redesign, we believe we have found its counterpart: the HTC U24 Pro.

This discovery emerged thanks to a keen-eyed reader who highlighted the striking resemblances between the U24 Pro and the Trump phone we previously discussed. These similarities are hard to ignore: both devices feature an angled body, a curved display, a distinctive set of front sensors, and similar specifications, including the rare inclusion of a headphone jack and microSD card support.

It’s important to clarify upfront: HTC is not covertly manufacturing the Trump phone. This was confirmed by Sohaib Ahmed, HTC’s global PR director, who stated, “HTC does not design or manufacture phones for third parties.” However, this doesn’t exclude the possibility of another company being involved in the design or production of both phones. Given their visual and functional resemblances, this seems quite plausible.

The U24 Pro itself is an intriguing device. Released in 2024 at €549 (approximately $600 at that time), it was perceived by some as a revival for HTC, despite following the U23 Pro’s release the previous year and a series of smaller launches targeting Asian markets. Once a giant in the Android ecosystem, HTC experienced a significant decline after selling a substantial portion of its smartphone division to Google for $1.1 billion in 2017.

Both the T1 Phone and the U24 Pro share a uniquely asymmetric angular design, with each edge forming a distinctive point and a prominently curved front screen. No other phone seems to replicate this shape. Even minor details, such as the alignment of antenna lines around the power and volume buttons, match. Particularly noteworthy is the sensor array at the top of both devices. The U24 Pro features a split speaker grill, notification LED, and proximity sensor, creating a unique configuration: a long bar, a tiny LED dot, and a shorter bar where the display meets the phone’s edge. This sensor layout appears identical on the Trump phone we examined, though we cannot confirm if the sensors are the same or if the T1 Phone will include a notification LED.

Other details are subtler. It’s hard to tell exactly from the glimpses I got of the Trump phone, but along the top frame it certainly looks to have both a headphone jack and a microphone in the exact same positions as on the HTC device. Even having a headphone jack in the first place is evidence of the phones’ connection, given how rare the feature is in modern devices. The same can be said for the fact that both phones include a microSD card slot, sharing support for up to 1TB cards on top of a base 512GB of storage.

While the rear cameras look completely different, which seems to scupper my theory, look again: The U24 Pro’s cameras are split into a pair close together, with a third lens lower down. The new Trump phone sets all its cameras in one mount, but they’re unevenly spaced, with a larger gap between the second and third lenses. These cameras may look totally different on the surface, but I suspect that underneath you’ll find they’re similar. And what we know of the specs matches too: Trump Mobile told me that its phone will have 50-megapixel sensors for both the main and selfie cameras, and my glimpse of its camera UI showed an ultrawide and a 2x zoom option — all of which you’ll find on the U24 Pro.

Assuming that the two phones are essentially the same, does the U24 Pro tell us any more about what to expect from the T1? It’s powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 7 Gen 3, matching what I’d been told about a Snapdragon 7-series chip in the Trump phone. The U24 Pro has a 6.8-inch OLED display, 60W wired charging and even wireless charging support, and an IP67 rating for dust and water protection. There’s reason to be cautious reading too much into the spec sheet, though: The U24 Pro released with a 4,600mAh battery, smaller than the 5,000mAh capacity I’ve been told will be in the Trump phone. If that spec differs, then other elements of the internals could well too — the bigger battery in particular might replace the wireless charging coils of the HTC phone.

The U24 Pro launched to middling reviews, which may not inspire much confidence in Trump Mobile’s offering. Tech Advisor gave the phone two and a half stars out of five, calling it “hard to recommend over rivals,” while Notebookcheck declared it “modern and yet out of date.” Still, it fared surprisingly well in a JerryRigEverything teardown and durability test.

He noticed, however, that this didn’t appear to be the HTC of old, lacking the sapphire crystal HTC previously used on its displays and optical image stabilization on the front camera it once pioneered. The U24 Pro and other HTC phones released in the last few years share little consistent design language, and ship with near-stock Android software. Speculation has been rife that HTC isn’t in fact manufacturing the phones internally, but had commissioned an ODM — original design manufacturer — to produce the hardware. ODMs design and manufacture phones for other companies, usually to a set of specifications provided by the consumer-facing brands, and often retain ownership of the designs, allowing them to reuse and repurpose them for other clients. I asked HTC for clarification, but the company wouldn’t confirm whether the U24 Pro was made in-house or contracted out.

It’s certainly possible that Trump Mobile, or its manufacturing partner, is simply ripping off the design of a little-known HTC device. But I think the most likely answer here is a more mundane one: HTC probably worked with some unnamed ODM to design and manufacture the U24 Pro, and Trump Mobile just happened to work with the same company. That manufacturer may have either dug out its old designs for HTC when developing the T1 Phone, or perhaps gave new life to old, unused components from HTC’s production run. Without knowing the hypothetical ODM involved, it’s hard to say for sure. Trump Mobile has previously confirmed that it’s working with a partner or partners to manufacture its phones outside the US, before their “final assembly” in Miami, but executive Don Hendrickson wouldn’t tell me the name of its manufacturer or where it’s based. I reached out to the company again for comment on this story, and received no reply.

So no, I don’t think that HTC made the Trump phone. But it does look likely that it is based, more or less, on one of that company’s phones. It remains to be seen how the T1 Phone will differ in its details, but the fact that its origins seem so closely tied to an unpopular midranger from two years ago doesn’t exactly inspire confidence in the T1 Phone’s flagship credentials.

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