A friend sent me an article about Omeed Malik, president of 1789 Capital. While I was digging into it, another friend sent me a video about a fundraiser at Malik’s Southampton home.
A friend sent me an article about Omeed Malik, president of 1789 Capital. While I was digging into it, another friend sent me a video about a fundraiser at Malik’s Southampton home. By then, Malik’s name had already led into JD Vance, Donald Trump Jr., Rebekah Mercer, Christopher Buskirk, Fannie Mae, a private Washington club charging $500,000 for founding membership and a defense company that received a $620 million conditional Pentagon loan commitment three months after 1789 invested in it.
The thread running through all of this has a name given to it by the people building it: the parallel economy. Once the pieces are put together, the phrase describes far more than conservatives choosing where to shop. It reaches political organizing, voter data, media, permanent investment capital, companies operating in strategically important industries and unusually close access to the federal government.
JD Vance and Christopher Buskirk were involved in the creation of the Rockbridge Network in 2019. Reuters later reviewed three internal Rockbridge documents describing a network that stretched well beyond campaign contributions. Its activities included investigative media, polling, voter turnout and political mobilization, and Reuters reported that a Rockbridge prospectus described an ambition to “replace the current Republican ecosystem.”
The Washington Post later reported more detail about Rockbridge’s origins. According to the Post, the 2019 gathering that produced the network was convened by Vance and Peter Thiel and included figures such as Rebekah Mercer, Tucker Carlson and economist Oren Cass. The goal was to turn Trump’s political coalition into something capable of lasting beyond Trump, complete with its own pipeline of voters, donors and candidates.
Three years later, another piece was added. Reuters reported that at a 2022 Rockbridge gathering, Buskirk, Omeed Malik, Rebekah Mercer and Blake Masters discussed financing what they called a “parallel economy.” That discussion eventually led to the founding of 1789 Capital by Malik, Buskirk and Mercer. Days after Donald Trump won the 2024 election, Trump Jr. joined the firm as a partner.
Political infrastructure and investment infrastructure were now growing alongside one another, with some of the same people involved in both.
Malik has described the parallel economy in market terms. Millions of Americans who supported Trump had become alienated by corporations, technology companies, financial institutions and media organizations they believed opposed their values. Those people represented an enormous market, and investors could build or finance alternatives willing to serve it.
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