Tetris said on Friday (September 3, 2026) that it did not give permission for the White House to use the game’s iconic imagery for a controversial online arcade that the U.S. President Donald Trump administration released on Thursday (September 4, 2026).
The arcade-style games and promotional content used by the Trump administration contain images that resemble games created by Tetris and other major game developers including Sega, Microsoft-owned Xbox and the Flappy Bird Foundation.
“The Tetris Company was not involved in the creation of ‘Build the Wall’ and did not authorize or license the Tetris brand or intellectual property for the game,” Tetris told AFP in a statement. “We are currently reviewing the matter,” the statement continued. “At Tetris, we believe in the power of connection and bringing people together, not dividing them,” Tetris said in a social media post.
The White House is trying to convince voters that Mr. Trump’s second presidential term has been successful ahead of the midterm election in November. The balance of power in Congress will also be at stake when Americans go to the polls in just over two months.
In one clip, the letters from the Sega logo transform into MAGA, a term that stands for Make America Great Again, which President Trump turned into his campaign slogan during his first presidential run for the 2016 election.
“This administration is laser focused on ways to innovate and tell the story of the President’s many accomplishments in a way that resonates with every American,” the White House said Thursday in a statement to AFP .
