1789 Capital

Overview

1789 Capital is a Palm Beach venture firm built on a bet that politics and portfolio returns can be the same thing. Founded in 2022 by investment banker Omeed Malik, Arizona publisher Christopher Buskirk, and Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer, it sells investors “patriotic capitalism” — MAGA-aligned investing that rejects environmental, social, and governance principles in favor of ideological alignment with Donald Trump’s voters (Reuters). Donald Trump Jr. became a partner in November 2024, days after his father’s election victory, and the money followed: from roughly $150 million under management to more than $1 billion by September 2025, and about $3.5 billion by May 2026 (Reuters; CNN). In late 2026 the firm is no longer just a financial story — it is a legal one, having answered a congressional document demand with accusations of political gamesmanship while Democrats promise subpoenas if they take Congress in the midterms (Reuters).

The September 2026 congressional fight

The immediate fight began in August 2026, when Rep. Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, opened what he called an investigation into 1789 Capital. Raskin alleged the firm bought stakes in companies shortly before they received federal funding or favorable policy decisions, and he named four: the prediction market Polymarket, e-cigarette maker Juul, defense-tech contractor Anduril Industries, and a small rare-earth company called Vulcan (Reuters). His letter demanded the firm’s portfolio list, its due-diligence files, and preserved communications with members of the Trump administration — including messages sent on encrypted apps (Reuters).

The answer came on September 9, and it was written to be read aloud. Lawyers Alexander J. Merton and William A. Burck of the top firm Quinn Emanuel — which 1789 had hired to handle congressional investigations — refused to hand over the records and dismissed Raskin’s inquiry as a “spaghetti-against-the-wall approach” built on “unsubstantiated and emotional aspersions” (Reuters). “1789 Capital welcomes legitimate congressional oversight,” they wrote, “but it has no intention of being held hostage to political gamesmanship in which assertions are made publicly and broad demands for confidential business records follow in the hope that those records will supply the factual basis that was missing when the assertions were made” (Reuters). A firm spokesperson told Reuters that Raskin had “offered no proof of wrongdoing, only politically motivated accusations,” adding that his letter demonstrated “a troubling lack of financial literacy” (Reuters).

The dispute sits inside a larger threat. Reuters reported on September 28, 2026 that if Democrats take the House or Senate in November’s midterms, they expect to launch investigations — with subpoena power — as early as February 2027, and that 1789 Capital is “of particular interest” alongside Trump-linked crypto firms (Reuters). Sen. Richard Blumenthal, in line to chair an investigations panel, told Reuters: “We will use our subpoena power, absolutely” (Reuters). Companies tied to the family are already hiring lawyers for internal audits and crisis-communications firms, and some have begun referring congressional requests to the White House, according to Reuters’ interviews with corporate counsels and congressional staff (Reuters).

The firm’s legal defense on the merits leans on a rare-earth example: its lawyers pointed to one investment in which the federal business had already been awarded — dating to 2024 — before 1789 joined the financing round, saying 1789 was “one of many institutional investors” in that company (Reuters, industry press). A Vulcan spokesperson said the company “did not ask or solicit its investors to facilitate the Pentagon loan” and would engage Congress “in good faith” (Reuters).

EIG: the ideology as a brand

1789 did not just reject ESG — it coined a replacement. The firm’s own boilerplate describes it as financing companies in the “Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Growth (‘EIG’) economy,” positioning EIG as the framework driving “the next era of American prosperity” (Business Wire). The slogan on the investment side is equally American-exceptionalist: Malik says the firm invests “in the next chapter of American exceptionalism” (Business Wire). The name 1789 itself is founding-era branding — though sources cannot agree on the referent: Reuters says it is “the year the U.S. Constitution went into effect,” while CNN says it is “the year the Bill of Rights was enacted” (Reuters; CNN).

The operating model is unusual in its selectivity: the firm takes only minority positions in private U.S. companies — deals typically run $5 million to $50 million — but it will accept foreign investors, including sovereign wealth funds, provided they come from countries the firm considers “pro-American” (Reuters). It does not publicly disclose its investors (Reuters). By mid-2026 about 40% of the money came from foreign investors, whose locations are not disclosed in SEC filings (CNN). Malik has called foreign inflows normal for a growing investment group, stressing that the money is invested in the United States to create jobs; after the 2024 election he visited nearly 19 countries, meeting business and political leaders while publicly mentioning the firm (CNN).

How the firm got built

The partnership’s origin runs through the Rockbridge Network, the donor organization Buskirk co-founded with JD Vance in 2019. Reuters reporting traces the firm to that network’s orbit: Buskirk, a confidant of billionaire Peter Thiel, and Malik, a former Bank of America banker who drifted from the Democratic Party during Trump’s first term and became a Mar-a-Lago member, met in Palm Beach and launched the fund — with Thiel described as an instrumental early force who had financed Buskirk’s political activism and introduced Vance to Buskirk (Reuters).

The Malik–Trump Jr. relationship predates the fund by years. The two began planning investments together around 2020, and in that year they co-authored an op-ed in the Daily Caller attacking corporate America’s “willful blindness and dogmatic adherence to free trade with China” (Reuters). It became public on July 20, 2023, when Don Jr. — in a blue suit and light blue tie — stood with his then-girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle and Malik on the balcony overlooking the New York Stock Exchange floor as PSQ Holdings went public, the three chanting “USA! USA! USA!” as Malik clapped Don Jr. on the shoulder (Reuters). Malik’s special-purpose acquisition company had acquired a stake in PSQ, where Don Jr. was an investor; PSQ owns PublicSquare, an online marketplace that calls itself a conservative alternative to Amazon for “consumers and business owners who cherish family values and God-given liberty” (Reuters). “People are sick and tired of this woke shit,” Don Jr. wrote on X in June 2024. “It’s why I’m an investor and such a big believer in” PublicSquare (Reuters).

The firm’s first high-profile investment was in Tucker Carlson’s media company Last Country Inc — a stake that was bought out in March 2025, with co-founder Neil Patel declining to provide financial specifics (Reuters). Then came the Trump Jr. announcement: on November 10, 2024, the first weekend after his father’s victory, Don Jr. told a Rockbridge donor event in Las Vegas he was joining 1789 as a partner, becoming responsible for sourcing investments, raising capital, and setting strategy (Reuters; CNN).

The portfolio that made it a target

What followed the partnership was a run of deals that now sit at the center of the scrutiny. Investments included three of Elon Musk’s companies — SpaceX (called the firm’s “largest” asset by a partner), xAI, and Neuralink — plus Anduril, Perplexity AI, Juul Labs, Hadrian, PsiQuantum, Firehawk Aerospace, Axiom Space, and the Starlab commercial space station venture (Reuters; Business Wire). Don Jr. took direct positions in at least two portfolio companies: adviser at Polymarket and board member at online pharmacy BlinkRx, and he led the firm’s investment in Happy Dad, the seltzer company co-founded by a member of the Nelk Boys influencer group (Reuters).

The returns and the policy environment moved together. Federal authorities dropped two investigations into Polymarket — one criminal, one civil, started under the Biden administration over 2024 election betting — in July 2025, which CEO Shayne Coplan announced on X as a clearance of any wrongdoing (Reuters). That same month, the FDA authorized the sale of Juul’s e-cigarette device and refill cartridges in tobacco and menthol flavors after years of regulatory scrutiny — a decision seen as a new lease of life for a company that narrowly avoided bankruptcy in 2022 (Reuters). A Juul spokesperson said 1789 had invested in the company in March, taking a stake valued at roughly $5 million (Reuters).

CNN’s July 2026 analysis put numbers on the pattern: ten defense, space, and software companies backed by 1789 received more than $1.6 billion in federal funding in the first 500 days of Trump’s second term — about 79% more than in the same period at the end of Biden’s term, with additional federal loans and subcontracts over $1 billion pursued by other connected startups (CNN). Vulcan Elements received a $620 million government loan a few months after 1789’s investment, pursued by White House adviser Peter Navarro; Axiom Space won more than $300 million in contracts in the first 500 days, versus about $153 million at the end of Biden’s term (CNN). About 18% of the funding to 1789-tied companies was non-competitive, versus 7.5% in the comparable Biden period (CNN).

The firm denies any connection between the politics and the performance. Thomas Clare, representing the firm, told CNN that “the answer is unequivocally no” on whether anyone at the firm discussed federal contracts with the administration; a Trump Jr. spokesperson said he “does not interact with the federal government in the capacity of any company in which he invests or advises” (CNN). Clare added that the portfolio consists of “the hottest private companies on the market” that other large funds also back, and that there is “no basis” for saying 1789 acted any differently than other reputable funds (CNN). The Pentagon said external ties and political connections “do not influence funding decisions,” and the White House said: “There are no conflicts of interest” (CNN). Critics see it differently: Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette of the Project on Government Oversight said, “There’s money from my paycheck and your paycheck that is being taken out in the form of taxes and is going directly into the pocketbooks of these companies and by extension to the Trump family,” while former Bush White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter noted, “I don’t think the founders would have tolerated this in 1789, that’s the irony of it” (CNN; Reuters). Trump Jr. himself, asked about the Hunter Biden comparison at a Qatar forum, answered: “I’ve been a businessman long before this. We were businessmen before this, and we’ll be one after my father’s presidency” (CNN).

One detail both major investigations agree on: neither Reuters in 2025 nor CNN in 2026 found evidence of lawbreaking. Reuters wrote it had “no evidence that 1789 Capital has violated any laws or received preferential treatment”; CNN wrote there is “no evidence that 1789 Capital or Trump Jr. pressured for federal funding” (Reuters; CNN).

Beyond the fund: the social infrastructure

1789’s partners have built a social layer around the money. In April 2026, Malik, Buskirk, and Don Jr. co-launched the Executive Branch, a private club tucked beneath a Georgetown condo building in Washington, D.C., with membership fees reaching $500,000 — co-owned with Trump’s crypto czar David Sacks, the Winklevoss twins, and Alex and Zach Witkoff, the sons of Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff (Reuters). The club says it exists to give conservative allies a private gathering space without media scrutiny; ethics observers say it creates private access to the administration, a charge a club spokesperson called “laughable” (Reuters). And in the background, Don Jr. advocates policy in the firm’s backyard: in March 2026 he spoke at a Republican State Attorneys General Association event for federal-level regulation of prediction markets — the industry his portfolio company Polymarket leads (CNN).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not assert a single current AUM figure — sources report $861 million in SEC-derived data, about $3.5 billion per firm executives in May 2026, and over $4 billion in aggregators; the range is given as reported. It does not claim the reported $3 billion second growth fund has closed — Bloomberg described it as in talks. It does not resolve whether “1789” honors the Constitution’s effective year or the Bill of Rights’ enactment year; the sources disagree. It does not assert that any federal contract, loan, or regulatory decision was steered to the firm — both Reuters and CNN explicitly reported finding no evidence of wrongdoing, and the profile presents the Raskin inquiry as an investigation, not a finding. The September 9 letter’s quoted lines are as printed by Reuters, not from a published full text.