The Hollywood actor is a prominent donor to the Democratic Party in the United States. In recent years, that has regularly led to criticism from President Trump, who has called him a “second-rate movie star,” among other things. According to Clooney, it didn’t bother him much. “It’s not my job to keep the President of the United States happy.”
I’m sure you’re correct. And yes, these are trivial amounts for him – and not exactly insane amounts if you simply owned a house in LA and sold it to flip it into EU citizenship. IMO the key point is that this is a 4-year process that I bet he started in mid-2021. Time is something he can’t buy.
The US has its own citizenship by investment schemes as well, well before the “Gold Card” or whatever scam that is. Usually the base investment levels on these things are $100K-$300K and then you’ll be on the hook for taxes and admin fees and a lawyer as well. It’s why so many UK cits bought property in Portugal or Greece as they had lower levels for investment to count.