Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News. Welcome to a special conversation with the principles of seventeen eighty nine Capital, the politically connected venture firm with the focus on companies that are carving out space and a parallel economy that caters directly to conservative values. It's more notable investments include Xai, prescription drug provider blink Rx, and defense tech companies andrel
and Firehawk. Omi Mallick co founded the firm in twenty twenty three, and Donald Trump Junior joined as a partner last year. They both joined me now along with Bloomberg Surveillance co anchor A Marie Horter, and here in Studio two in New York.
Thank you so much, Remaine, and thank you gentlemen for joining us here in New York at Bloomberg TV. Tomorrow morning, you gonna be downtown at the Nicey nine point thirty ringing the opening vell omit. I just learned it's your fourth time doing so. This fact is for an online gun reel retailer, Grab a Gun. But there's been a tremendous amount of demand for this. What do you think is driving that?
Well?
I think it's an extension of our thesis that Don and I start and what now five years ago, which was using various mechanisms in finance to try to push back against overreach we saw in the private sector, mostly at the behest of ESG and DEI mandates. What's happened is through those mandates, private companies that control a lot
of the economy have starved certain industries of financing. You guys obviously know that that's happened in fossil fuels with some of the mandates we've seen with public companies, but it has also negatively impacted guns and ammunition.
So we used a SPAC to take.
A company called grabagun public in furtherance of the Second Amendment, and the people have overwhelmingly supported it. This is now, having just closed a few minutes ago, one of the most successful SPAC transactions in history. We received zero redemptions from trust, meaning the company will receive from our team tomorrow. We ring the bell over one hundred and seventy million in proceeds.
Wow.
When this was first introduced, I read it was actually only just at one hundred million. Obviously, this is politically controversial. You're talking about an online gun company being really direct access to the consumer.
Are there safety concerns in this? Don no.
I mean, that's the big misnomer. They say, you're not getting a gun to your doorstep. You're still going through Federal firearms licensed dealers, but we're all physically pick it out to go, physically pick it up. That's where you run your background checks again. And they like to pretend there's not such a thing, but it actually is very
real and it's very regulated. But this is the way that regular people are buying throughout the crime of the last few years that you've seen women are now entering the gun market. The experience of going to your local gun shop. It may be fine for me when I walk in, it's hey, don how's it going. If you're a first time gun buyer, if you're a female, if you're someone that's young, that's an uncomfortable experience in many cases.
So Grab a Gun allows you to do that the way you buy everything else, like you would on Amazon, if you're buying home decor or other goods. And so we're bringing the experience that they're shopping with everything else to the regular consumer and it's been incredible. And so it's a company with real revenue. They're doing one hundred million dollars a year real profit, and you know, pretty cool to take a gun company public on the New
York Stock Exchange. That's not something I imagine money people would have envisioned a while ago. But there has been that big pushback from a big portion of the country that says, we weren't able to do these things. We were debanked, we were de insured, we were de everything for so long. So our whole thesis was to give a big portion of the country what they've been looking for and to free up and really democratize the capital markets.
And you've given them a slice of that. Of course, there's still going to get a lot of big institutions that will say, Okay, we don't want to actually invest in in a gun company of any form. And I know that the whole thesis behind seventeen eighty nine and some of the other projects you two have been working on is designed to sort of provide an avenue for those areas outside of just firearms. What else are you looking at.
Don Well, we've obviously mentioned some of the companies that were invested in. Again a contrary and approach, but something that again a vast majority of the country, or at least a solid portion of the country, really wants to engage in. We took another company public two years ago called Public Square, to get an online retailer for people to buy American made goods and to support the counties
that they love. That's sort of morphed also into now a payments processor, since so many of the transactions that you saw for you know, conservative or right leaning type of goods were basically debanked. I've had businesses that I've started actually get debanked by getting a letter, Hey, by the way, there's no more money in your bank account. We have a cashiers check in the mail. We just
don't want to do business with you. Not because we were doing anything else, but because we didn't go with the mandates of whatever it was of politically correct, you know, policy at the time, and so so many Americans felt left by the wayside that we said, hey, this is a pretty solid market. If we can cater to half the country that whether it directly or they just know it's a potential we're going to be left by the wayside.
That's a solid business to be in.
Another company and industry that kind of falls into that category is what we were seeing with Polymarket and some of these prediction market firms, and of course they just want to reprieve today a couple of investigations that have now formally been dropped. You're an investor in that, obviously
you have a connection to the Trump administration. I am curious as to whether you think we're going to see more progress in the diction space, not only with poly market, both cauching and some of these other things to operate more freely in the way that those founders have articulated.
So yeah, let me answer that in kind of a way to also summarize our rural investment thesis. So he talked a lot about the response companies as parallel economy. That's what we've been using our spacks for seventy United Mandate is even broader than that. It will include some of that. We have, for example, investment in Substack, which is a free speech platform protecting the First Amendment. But
we also go into several other areas. One is areas that are going to enhance the security and prosperity of the United States, so think defense tech or the reindustrialization of the United States. The third is the area that we talked a little bit about areas that have been underserved, fossil fuels, guns that we see an arbitrage opportunity, and then finally where you're starting to pick on one with polymarket, areas where I think the government or certain incumbents have
failed miserably. That's the reason we got into blink our X, which reduces drug prices. It's an area of the market where the government has failed to reduce pricing and we find this is a disrupt or. SpaceX falls into that category as well. Nasau failed and SpaceX took the mandate. Polymarket falls into that and that people lost faith with polsters they were constantly just paid off in hired mercenaries.
And what poly market has shown is that you can basically take the markets to try to predict what the truth is and because people are gonna put their money behind what they really think. It's the same thing you see with using markets in finance in order to predict things. You can do that now with polling around politics and other issues as well.
So the last thing.
I'd say about poly Market is it also announced that from founder's fund, they're going to have over a billion dollar valuation, which we like, because that marks up our investment three times.
Well, they've been accurate, they've been right.
Yeah.
I've been in politics, at least the game peripherally now for a decade and how many times. I mean, we saw it the week before the election. Kamala Harris is gonna win Iowa.
It's like that. I don't know.
I was in Iowa a couple of days ago. I don't think that's going to actually happen. They were able to get that, so they saw the way these markets and some of these traditional sort of political institutions have been able to be weaponized for the benefit of the establishment, and they've gone against it. They've proven to be right, and that's a solid investment.
Well on that point, don And we certainly saw that in the presidential election. We also saw that at the local level here in New York with the kind of the surprise victory of Zora and mom Domi in the mayoral primary. And I know there are a lot of folks, particularly in finance and real estate, who are wringing their
hands over the prospect of a mayor mom Domi. But I am curious as to what you think of not so much him, but about the sort of a groundswell of support that he got, particularly from a lot of young people in this city, and what they're asking for out of their mayor or potential mayor.
Listen.
I think it's going to create a serious problem for New York. I don't remember what the exact stats are today, but I remember eight years ago when was, you know, getting ready to leave New York myself as a political refugee in the Free State of Florida from the People's Republic here in New York City.
You see that.
It is if you're a making, if you're a made in your drug in front of every court and you're sued for all these You know, I'm the first person in the history of the world to get sued for paying back a loan on time with interest. Just so we're clear, I get it. It's a little bit different, but I think at the time it was something like eighteen thousand people in New York City paid eighty four percent of the tax. Those people are mobile, They can
move wherever they want. So as a real estate holder in New York, I guess it stucks for me as a real estate holder in Palm Beach. It's going to be incredible because those people are going to move. They're very mobile. They've had enough, they understand what's going on, and they're not going to continue to subsidize the nonsense that hasn't changed anything. We've seen this promises before. It hasn't worked. It didn't work when they promised communism in Europe,
it didn't work in the Soviet Union. Certainly hasn't worked anywhere else that has been tried in the world. It's created more poverty than any institution imaginable. And it's sad to see literally the home of the free market, the home of capitalism, New York City, take this sharp turn to the left. And I don't think it's going to
work out well. And I think people understand that. It's a little troubling watching Andrew Cuomo now try to come in as this sort of third party candidate, And just so we're clear, like you know, we probably didn't get along that well for the last decade, but my first political fundraiser in the this in history was for Andrew Cuomo because I was a real estate guy in this city and he was the Attorney general. So he signs off on your offering plant, so I know him well.
But you're this is going to split up at the New.
York Stock Exchange.
Why didn't you guys wait to maybe go to the New Textics Exchange.
If that's how you feel about New.
York, Well, because you know we're here now. I think that'll be a place that will take companies public in the future. But we're here now, and I think for us and for our thesis to be able to ring the bill of the New York Stock Exchange taking a gun company public, it's sort of an ultimate vindication and what we've been talking about all along. I mean again, there's not a time in modern history where you think
that's going to actually happen. So this is our thesis really, you know, manifesting itself, like we're back, We're going to do these things and we're going to fight for the freedoms that Americans love and deserve.
Politics is on a four year cycle. How do you do that when you look at twenty twenty eight you're investing where you say we're conservative values, anti ESG. You call it maga make America grow again. What do you think about, say, there's a changing of the guard in Washington.
Four years When did Fox News do the best. I'm guessing durg Obamas two years two terms, So we have an all weather strategy. Either we're the loyal opposition or like we are now, we've been vindicated culturally and politically with what we've been saying. Ultimately, I don't think this is partisan. I believe we represent the majority of the country actually, and I think there was a period of time where it lost its way and we were doing
something that I think is actually totally capitalistic. We're simply providing people with choice. Esg's been around in earnest since twenty ten and became a multi trillion dollar asset class, and at the same time, when you map out their returns.
They fail to deliver. And that's just the facts.
Why isn't there a fund out there like ours who's providing an alternative for people to invest in?
Fair point?
But do you worry at all that your strategy EIG or whatever you're calling it, ends up being the next ESG where it's basically just sort of a niche instrument for a niche group of people, and maybe it doesn't deliver.
I don't because if you look at the principles of what that acronyms for entrepreneurship, innovation, and growth. It's everything done, which just lamenting about New York City, which is to say that this was the place that capitalism are supposed to be universal values. It's one of the things if you have a country like America is supposed to be our unifying ideology is capitalism.
And it does give.
Me hope that tomorrow the New York Stock Exchange, which has been great by the way, as a partner, is welcoming us to basically do a ticker under the letters pew PW tomorrow, you know, a little takeoff on.
Pew p like shooting a gun. But it's also important. I think the last four years taught Americans a lot of things, right. They became unafraid to speak up about things that were obviously insane, things that went too far. You see that manifesting itself right now. You know in so many cultural issues. You know, the trans women in ladies sports, you know men playing in women's sports, people who we're afraid to voice those opinions about how asenin and a concept like that was just a few years
ago are now these are ninety ten issues. We're taking the ninety so we're okay with that competition. If it just means that ever ones actually thinking rationally, we're fine with that. If we're the catalyst for that change, we're good with that because that's what's good for the country, and that's what's good for America.
Speaking of voicing of opinion, you have a big stake in Xai. Obviously there's been some tension with the former first buddy. Has that changed how you view that company? And even maybe more so in the financials, we've reported that they are burning through a tremendous amount of capital every single month. We still want to maintain that investment.
One of the by the way, actually yes, one of the worst publicly traded companies of all time was Twitter before Elon Musk took it over and made it profitable. So I'm long on Elon. Our fund is we're invested in every one of his companies. We're invested in x which was Twitter Xai separately. Now they're merged, which is also a brilliant play because the feedstock that these Ai companies now he now has in house with a platform that has over six hundred million users. It's genius. The
competitors don't have that. We're also invested in Neurlink as well. So we think the Elon index, if you will, is something that's here to stay, and the companies are demonstrated their success independent of whatever personal issue may happen, which obviously he and I want to get resolved and move on in a positive.
Do you have a personal relationship with Elon?
Of course, yeah, we did. It's still healthy.
The reality is, kay, there's going to be political difference is the political world is different than the world in which you know, you often function with. That creates a lot of other tensions. I mean, I love Elon as an innovator. I mean he's gotten without question, one of the top innovators. Yeah, of this century, perhaps ever, and so you know, focusing on those things, I think it's very pol We've always been able to maintain that relationship.
I think that comes back. You know again, politics is a very different game. I learned that one the hard way eight years ago. You know, people create obstacles, they create headaches that you know aren't real.
They are and you are making it because look, just a few months ago in February, you know, space X was value to a three hundred and fifty billion. They just didn't oversubscribe round for four hundred billion a few months later. This is constantly happening in every single one.
Of his portfolios.
There's reports out there that XI, which was at fifty or sixty billion less than a year ago, is going to be a two hundred billion. So the markets and markets generally are speaking, and they still love the portfolio.
When it comes to politics, though it is in our financial markets now, policy in Washington constantly drives what's going on.
People are glued to truth social.
To understand what potential the next tariff rate is. Don I want to get your sense, given the fact that you are the president's son. I asked your dad once about the Trump put if it exists in the market, Is there a threshold he's unwilling to maintain when it comes to either whether it's tariff policy or something else because of what is going on in the financial markets, And he once talked about the bond market getting yippie. Do you think a Trump put exists?
No, I don't think so.
I think the reality is he's one of the few people in politics who's willing to play a long game.
We don't do that right. We have very short term cycles.
People make bad decisions today to get a quick result tomorrow that is a disastrous for us in fifty years down the line. He's the guy that's willing to say the things that need to be said today, who's willing to take some of that heat now to be able to have the end result that's beneficial for the country in the future. That's what he He's done very consistently. You saw that even a couple of weeks ago. You know,
SMP's down five. Oh my god, it's the Trump crash. Well, what happened when it, you know, hit all time highs? What last Thursday? What happens when it recovered, you know, ten days later? After that? He gets credit for the negative, but he doesn't get credit for the positive. The reality is these things manifest themselves over time. We've become an
instant gratification society. He's one of the few people that's actually a decision maker that is playing the long game and doing so for the benefit of the country.
Najer Head, I want to give you the last word, but I also just wanted you to just at least touch on some of the other two big political issues going on right now. The legislation on Crypto and the potential freeing of Fanny and Freddie. Where does that stand.
Well, Yeah, I'm on the board of Fannie May and you know that was something that I wanted to be able to serve the country. I'm excited about making sure that those institutions stay in a great spot and see how I can work with Commissioner Polty, Secretary Investment, and Secretary Lotnek to improve upon them. And that's what my role is, given my experience as an attorney and capital markets professional investor, that's why I did that. As far
as crypto legislation, next week, we're excited about that. That's going to be another signature piece of legislation the President's going to pass right after the big beautiful bill, and I think that's going to be something we needed and brings crypto out of the shadows as it was in the previous administration. And it's something or another reason why the President had that industry support.
Crypto is going to be the future of finance.
Yeah, we were doing everything imaginable in the prior administration to send that to all their places. People want to be in America, they want to invest in America, they want that stability. What they needed to some guide rails. They needed a framework in which they could work. Even for us in the crypto platforms that we were developing, whether it was American Bigcoin, whether it's World Liberty Financial, we didn't get into that because we all knew all
that much about crypto. We got into it out of necessity because we were getting debanked. There wasn't a person in this city that I couldn't call and get a loan for a real estate project a few short years ago. Then we became political, and all of a sudden, your persona in Nograda. So crypto's the future to be able to have the legislation to create those guardrails, to be able to keep that industry. This is going to be a multi trillion dollar industry, and it should be based
here in America. America should get the tax benefits of all of that, they should have the innovation of the growth. That's strategic thinking. And so I'm super excited about that bill because I think it's going to really make sure that America is the home of crypto and blockchain technology for the future. All Right.
I think that's a great place, and I really appreciate both of you taking time for US. Donald Trump Junior and Omeid Malik over at seventeen eighty nine Capital