Omeed Malik

Omeed Malik is the Wall Street banker who became one of the central financiers of the MAGA economy — co-founder of the venture firm 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. became a partner in November 2024, and a figure House Democrats targeted with a formal document demand in August 2026. On August 26, 2026, Rep. Jamie Raskin and the House Judiciary Democrats sent Malik, Christopher Buskirk, and Trump Jr. a letter alleging that 1789 Capital had traded on “insider knowledge and the use of insider political influence to steer major federal contracts and other financial benefits” to its portfolio companies, and demanding documents (House Judiciary Democrats). The letter’s claims are partisan allegations, not findings — but the fact that they were made, in writing, by a congressional ranking member to a sitting president’s eldest son’s business partner is the newest verified fact in Malik’s story, and the one his competitors’ profiles do not carry.

Malik reached this position by crossing a political chasm few financiers have crossed. He considered himself a lifelong Democrat: he voted twice for Barack Obama, donated to Hillary Clinton, and worked in Congress for two Democrats from New Jersey before moving through New York and Hamptons fundraising circles (The Free Press). “I had no choice but to do what I did,” he said of his switch — attributing it to Democratic positions on #MeToo, Black Lives Matter, COVID, and ESG policies that he called antithetical to essential American ideals (The Free Press; InfluenceWatch).

New Jersey to the top of Bank of America

Malik graduated from Colgate University in 2001 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and political science and received his law degree from Emory University School of Law in 2006 (InfluenceWatch). He worked for four years as a corporate lawyer at Weil, Gotshal & Manges in New York, then became a senior vice president at the now-defunct commodities brokerage MF Global (InfluenceWatch). At Bank of America Merrill Lynch he rose to managing director and global head of the hedge fund advisory business, where he also founded and led the Emerging Manager Program within the global equities business (InfluenceWatch; Inman).

His Wall Street career ended in rupture. Malik was fired in early 2018 and reached a settlement with Bank of America that July, after he filed a complaint with the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority alleging he had been dismissed in retaliation for whistleblowing about a supervisor’s lack of appropriate regulatory licensing and had been subjected to discrimination and defamation (Reuters). According to a separate FINRA filing made by the bank and reviewed by Reuters, his departure followed an internal investigation into alleged misconduct and interference with the firm’s review of the incident — allegations Malik denied (Reuters). Bank of America declined to comment on the allegations or the settlement (Reuters).

After leaving the bank, Malik founded the boutique merchant bank Farvahar Partners in Palm Beach, Florida, where he serves as founder and CEO (InfluenceWatch; Inman).

The party switch, documented in donations

The paper trail of Malik’s conversion is in Federal Election Commission records. He donated to Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, to Rep. Joe Kennedy III, and to Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign; then on July 29, 2019, he contributed to the Trump Victory PAC — the first of several donations to Trump’s 2020 campaign (InfluenceWatch). Reuters records that in 2019 he donated $11,200 to support Trump’s campaign a month after contributing $2,800 to Biden’s Democratic campaign (Reuters). He has since contributed to the Republican National Committee, the Senate campaigns of J.D. Vance and Ted Cruz, Ron DeSantis’s Restore Our Nation PAC, and in 2024 the Trump 47 Committee, the Trump National Committee JCF, and the Save America PAC (InfluenceWatch).

The relationship with the Trump family became public in 2020, when Malik and Donald Trump Jr. co-authored an op-ed for the Daily Caller — the right-wing website co-founded by commentator Tucker Carlson — lambasting corporate America for its “willful blindness and dogmatic adherence to free trade with China” (Reuters). In 2021 Malik moved to Palm Beach, home to Mar-a-Lago, and there he met Buskirk (Reuters).

1789 Capital and the $1 billion milestone

In 2023, Buskirk and Malik announced they had launched 1789 Capital, based in Palm Beach. Malik was listed in an SEC filing as president, with partners Buskirk and Rebekah Mercer — daughter of hedge fund billionaire Robert Mercer and a prominent donor to conservative causes (Reuters). The name refers to the year the U.S. Constitution went into effect; the firm’s mission was “patriotic capitalism,” a MAGA-aligned strategy that rejected environmental, social, and governance (ESG) principles in favor of what the founders called the “entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth” economy — the “parallel economy” (Reuters; InfluenceWatch).

The firm’s fortunes changed with the 2024 election. On November 9, 2024 — four days after the election — 1789 Capital named Donald Trump Jr. a full partner, tapping him to assist with “new investment origination, capital raising and strategy” (House Judiciary Democrats; Reuters). In the months after Trump’s return to the White House, the firm crossed $1 billion in assets — up from $150 million the prior year, according to Reuters, which cited people close to the firm and financial records (Reuters). Its expanding portfolio included stakes in three Elon Musk companies — SpaceX, xAI, and Neuralink — after Malik met Musk during the Trump campaign, plus previously unreported stakes in Perplexity AI and Juul Labs and backing for the defense startup Hadrian (Reuters).

The growth drew ethics scrutiny. Four government ethics specialists told Reuters that 1789 Capital’s structure posed a potential conflict of interest because Trump Jr. is both a partner in the firm and the son of a sitting president, with portfolio investments in industries that could benefit from federal contracts and regulatory changes (Reuters). “I don’t think the founders would have tolerated this in 1789, that’s the irony of it,” said Richard Painter, the chief White House ethics lawyer under George W. Bush (Reuters). The firm denied receiving any advantage from Trump Jr.’s role: “1789 Capital maximizes transparency and compliance, even though no one at the fund has ever worked in government,” a spokesperson said, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called it “irresponsible” to “fabricate conflicts of interest” (Reuters). Reuters stated explicitly that it had no evidence 1789 Capital had violated any laws or received preferential treatment (Reuters).

Fannie Mae, PublicSquare, and GrabAGun

In April 2025, Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte appointed Malik to the board of directors of Fannie Mae, the mortgage giant, saying Malik “brings great capital markets, legal and investment experience” (Inman). The appointment followed Pulte’s purge of 14 board members across Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that March; with Malik’s addition, Fannie Mae’s board had nine members (Inman). The New York Magazine profile that dubbed Malik “MAGA world’s premier financier” had described him as a “close friend” of Trump Jr. (Inman).

As chairman and CEO of Colombier Acquisition Corp., Malik had earlier helped take PublicSquare — the self-described marketplace for “patriotic businesses and consumers” — public in a 2023 SPAC merger (Inman). He stepped down from PublicSquare’s board on December 3, 2024, the same day Trump Jr. joined it (Inman). Malik and Trump Jr. then rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange for the trading debut of firearms retailer GrabAGun — the “Amazon of guns” whose stock symbol is PEW — a deal taken public through another Malik-backed SPAC (The Free Press; Inman).

What this profile does not claim

This profile does not assert that 1789 Capital violated any law or received preferential treatment — Reuters found no evidence of either, and the profile repeats that. The House Judiciary letter’s corruption allegations are reported as partisan claims, not findings. The letter’s characterization of Malik’s Bank of America exit is reported as the letter’s own framing; the profile instead reports only the two FINRA filings’ competing accounts, attributed to each side. Birth details, parents’ nationalities, the Executive Branch club, and the $3 billion / 200 percent figures from the New York Times via the letter were not independently verified and are not asserted as fact.