1789 Capital: The Rise, Power Network, and Investment Strategy of America's New Conservative Capital Elite

Core judgment. 1789 Capital is not simply an “anti-ESG fund.” It is better understood as a growth/private investment platform that binds together capital allocation, conservative political narrative, media expansion, fundraising networks, and elite relationship-brokering. Its current official slogan is “Funding the Next Chapter of American Exceptionalism.” Its public-facing language centers on “patriotic capitalism,” while Reuters described its practical ambition more precisely: to build a “parallel economy” that serves—and profits from—the America First movement.

Who counts as a founder. Public phrasing is not perfectly consistent. The current 1789 team page explicitly lists Omeed Malik, Christopher Buskirk, and Rebekah Mercer as founders, with Malik as Founder & President, Buskirk as Founder & CIO, and Mercer as Founder. Some media reports, however, emphasize Malik and Buskirk more heavily and describe Mercer more as a major owner, partner, or conservative financier. The most careful formulation is therefore: officially, all three are founders; operationally, the most visible day-to-day front-stage figures are Malik and Buskirk.

Its rare asset is the network. The most defensible way to understand 1789 is not as a single fund but as an intersection point among Peter Thiel and his technology capital circle, JD Vance and Rockbridge, Donald Trump Jr. and the Trump family’s political access, Rebekah Mercer’s conservative donor machine, Tucker Carlson and allied media figures, plus Malik’s Wall Street/SPAC/dealmaking capabilities and Buskirk’s organizational-ideological infrastructure. That is why 1789 functions both as an investment firm and as a financialized node of right-wing power.

Company timeline. Reuters reported that the idea emerged from discussions at the 2022 Rockbridge Summit about financing a conservative “parallel economy.” By February 2023, SEC Form D filings showed 1789 Capital Fund I, LP as a Delaware limited partnership formed in 2022, targeting a $100 million offering, with $10 million sold, a $1 million minimum investment, and only one investor at that time. In 2023, its first high-profile deal was a $15 million investment in Tucker Carlson’s Last Country Inc. By November 2024, Reuters characterized 1789 as a roughly $150 million Palm Beach-based conservative venture/growth fund, and Donald Trump Jr. joined as a partner. By September 2025, Reuters reported the firm had crossed $1 billion in assets. A December 15, 2025 amended Form D for Fund I showed $270.514 million sold to 71 investors. In May 2026, the Financial Times—citing the company—reported that assets under management had grown from roughly $200 million to $3.5 billion and that the longer-term goal was $10 billion. These figures come from different reporting bases and should not be treated as perfectly reconciled audited totals.

Structure and investment approach. Public materials place the firm in Palm Beach with Delaware fund structures. The current public team includes Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Abrahimzadeh in partner roles. Reuters reported that 1789 typically takes minority stakes in private U.S. companies, but may accept capital from foreign investors—including sovereign wealth funds—if they come from what the firm considers “pro-American” countries. The firm does not publicly disclose its investors. Sectorally, it has moved well beyond niche conservative consumer plays into defense, AI, space, drug distribution, fintech, right-leaning media, and politically resonant consumer brands. Publicly reported and/or confirmed holdings include Last Country, BlinkRx, Polymarket, Happy Dad, and Reuters-reported positions in SpaceX, xAI, Neuralink, Perplexity AI, Juul Labs, and Hadrian.

Omeed Malik. Malik is the clearest front-stage operating figure. Official bios state that he holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Political Science from Colgate and a J.D. with honors from Emory Law. Before finance, he worked in congressional settings and in the orbit of Democrat Donald Payne. Career-wise, he moved from Weil, Gotshal & Manges into MF Global, then to Bank of America Merrill Lynch, where he rose to a major role in hedge fund advisory and emerging-manager work. Public reporting describes him as born in New Jersey to Iranian and Pakistani immigrant parents and from a middle-class background, although more detailed family information is limited. After his 2018 firing from Bank of America amid misconduct allegations—which he denied—he sued, reportedly reached a substantial settlement, and used that rupture as the springboard for building Farvahar Partners, 1789 Capital, and Colombier SPAC vehicles. New York Magazine also documented his political shift from mainstream Democratic donor to MAGA-aligned financier, with pandemic-era policy disputes serving as a major stated breaking point. In practical terms, Malik’s importance is that he turned political grievance into a financeable investment thesis.

Christopher Buskirk. Buskirk is better understood as an organizer, ideological entrepreneur, and elite-network architect. The 1789 site says he founded, built, and sold multiple financial businesses in insurance, reinsurance, specialty lending, and tax-credit finance, and that Buskirk Capital eventually led to the creation of 1789. Publicly confirmable education points to a B.A. from Claremont McKenna College. He also founded and developed American Greatness, which became an influential Trump-era populist/conservative media platform, and he has authored books and commentaries across mainstream and conservative outlets. His most strategically important project before 1789 was Rockbridge Network, co-founded with JD Vance in 2019. Reuters reported that Rockbridge was built as a donor-and-operations architecture meant to fund journalism, polling, church-based activism, and turnout operations on the right, with a 2024 budget estimated around $70–80 million. 1789 was incubated inside that donor world. Public information on Buskirk’s family background and early upbringing is comparatively thin, but what is clear is that his role in 1789 is to connect donors, ideology, media, and political talent into a repeatable pipeline. His main controversies concern opacity, elite coordination, and fears that a new unelected right-wing donor class is building parallel power centers.

Rebekah Mercer. Mercer is the most resource-heavy founder of the three. Her 1789 bio says she graduated from Stanford with dual B.S. degrees in Biological Sciences and Mathematics and an M.S. in Operations Research and Engineering Economic Systems, and that she helped found Parler around a free-speech and data-privacy message. Broader public reporting identifies her as the daughter of Robert Mercer, the Renaissance Technologies billionaire and one of the most consequential conservative donors in modern U.S. politics. Available public reporting places her upbringing in Yorktown Heights, New York. Public biographies generally say she studied first at Cornell and then at Stanford, though descriptions of that path are not perfectly uniform; the Stanford degrees themselves are consistently reported. She also worked as a Wall Street trader at Renaissance Technologies. Mercer’s importance lies less in operating-company management and more in donor machinery, institutional influence, and political infrastructure. Public reporting ties her to the Mercer Family Foundation, the 2016 Trump transition ecosystem, Parler, the Heritage Foundation board, and the RAM Veterans Foundation / CharitiesForVets initiative. Her controversies are longstanding and substantial: association with the Mercer-financed Cambridge Analytica/Bannon/Trump 2016 ecosystem, control disputes at Parler, and broader criticism over the Mercer family’s role in anti-climate-science funding and hard-right politics. Within 1789, she is best understood as the founder who contributes money, legitimacy inside conservative donor circles, and network depth more than visible day-to-day execution.

Capital relationships and business model. 1789 operates through three reinforcing layers. The founder layer combines Malik’s dealmaking, Buskirk’s organizational/media architecture, and Mercer’s donor network. The network layer includes Peter Thiel, JD Vance, Blake Masters, Donald Trump Jr., Tucker Carlson, and allied conservative elites who generate access, capital, and deal flow. The platform layer includes funds, SPACs, media outlets, clubs, board seats, and brand narrative. Structurally, the firm uses private fund vehicles; strategically, it takes minority stakes in U.S. companies in favored sectors; operationally, it monetizes access, ideology, and elite curation. Public materials do not disclose detailed management-fee and carry terms, but given the private-fund structure, it is reasonable to infer that fund economics remain the financial core, while influence assets provide sourcing, distribution, and brand power.

Real assets versus influence assets. The “real assets” are the fund vehicles and the actual equity stakes in companies such as Last Country, BlinkRx, Polymarket, Happy Dad, and the larger late-stage tech and strategic businesses publicly linked to 1789. The “influence assets” are the founder-bound platforms around it: American Greatness, Rockbridge, Farvahar, Colombier, Daily Caller affiliations, Heritage ties, and the Executive Branch club. These are not always directly owned by 1789, but they strengthen fundraising, recruitment, access, and deal origination. That is why 1789 should be read not as a standalone fund franchise, but as the center of a broader ecosystem.

Turning points, achievements, and controversies. The decisive turning points were: incubating the firm inside Rockbridge; using Tucker Carlson’s company as an early symbolic investment; bringing Donald Trump Jr. in as a partner after the 2024 election; expanding aggressively into AI, defense, healthcare distribution, and space; and pairing the fund network with elite social infrastructure such as Executive Branch. Its greatest achievement so far is not one single return event but the speed with which it upgraded from a niche ideological fund to a politically connected growth platform reportedly above $1 billion in assets by September 2025 and, by company account, at $3.5 billion by May 2026. Its greatest controversy is proximity to public power. Reuters explicitly said it found no evidence of illegality or preferential treatment, but ethics experts argued that the structure creates a serious conflict-of-interest risk because Donald Trump Jr. is both a partner in the firm and the son of the sitting president, while some portfolio companies operate in sectors highly exposed to procurement, deregulation, or federal policy. The founders’ personal controversy profiles compound that problem: Malik’s Bank of America episode, Buskirk’s opaque donor-network politics, and Mercer’s deep ties to Cambridge Analytica, Parler, and hard-right donor activism.

Current position and limitations. As of June 2026, 1789 appears to be trying to evolve from a conservative anti-ESG niche fund into a broader America-first, multi-strategy asset-management platform spanning AI, defense, healthcare, media, space, consumer, and potentially real estate. The FT framed its ambition explicitly as building a firm durable enough to extend beyond the Trump era. That said, several limits remain. LP identities are not public. AUM figures from different filings and media reports do not fully reconcile. Rebekah Mercer’s exact day-to-day operating role inside 1789 is not well documented. Buskirk’s detailed early-life background is only lightly public. And many portfolio details come from reporting rather than a full public portfolio release by the firm itself. Any claim beyond those public boundaries should be treated as: public information is limited / accounts differ / not currently verifiable.