1789 Capital investing in brands that enhance US prosperity
'A lot of the things that we've done over the last few years [have come] out of necessity,' Trump Jr., who is projected to own around 300,000 shares in GrabAGun, told NYNext this week. 'We saw the affront on not just ourselves and our family businesses, but on so many Americans — and we have that ability to push back.'
4 Donald Trump Jr. (center) joined 1789 Capital late last year and was front and center at the NYSE bell ringing Wednesday.
Getty Images
Advertisement
'USA' chants rippled across the floor of the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday morning as Trump Jr., 1789 Capital founder Omeed Malik and GrabAGun CEO Marc Nemati rang the opening bell.
Trading under the ticker PEW, GrabAGun is the latest company to go public via special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC). And, as Jeffrey Sprecher — chair and CEO of Intercontinental Exchange, the parent company that owns the NYSE — told Wednesday's crowd, the first to do so with zero shareholder redemptions.
4 GrabAGun's debut marked the first-ever SPAC listing with zero shareholder redemptions.
JUSTIN LANE/EPA/Shutterstock
Advertisement
More than 60 blank-check companies have already gone public this year, raising $12.4 billion so far — the most since 2021, when the SPAC market reached a fever pitch with $162.6 billion raises, according to Dealogic.
Omeed Malik, 1789's founder and president, said he believes the public is ready to back businesses previously sidelined by woke investors who prioritize investing in companies promoting environmental, society and governance issues, known as ESG investing.
He coined the term EIG — entrepreneurship, innovation and growth — to characterize 1789 Capital's priorities.
4 GrabAGun is a Texas-based online firearms retailer known for its wide selection of guns, ammo and accessories.
Getty Images
Advertisement
'It's not just parallel economy,' Malik told NYNext this week. 'We want to invest in any company that's going to enhance the security or prosperity of the United States.
'It could be a defense tech company. It could be helping with the re-industrialization of the United States around rare earth minerals. Or it could be a very innovative AI company that's disrupting something inefficient that the American people need.'
4 1789 Capital was founded by Omeed Malik (left) on the thesis that capital markets have become increasingly politicized — and aims to counter that by investing in the EIG (entrepreneurship, innovation and growth) world.
AFP via Getty Images
Advertisement
When Trump and Malik Jr. took online marketplace PublicSquare public in 2022, the move was framed as a response to what they viewed as ideological censorship by Big Tech.
This story is part of NYNext, an indispensable insider insight into the innovations, moonshots and political chess moves that matter most to NYC's power players (and those who aspire to be).
Two years later, that stance is no longer considered fringe. And 1789 Capital, its name a reference to the year the Bill of Rights was introduced, isn't the only firm looking to tap into a widening appetite for businesses that, as Trump Jr. put it, 'wouldn't have been considered PC, and therefore were overlooked.'
Through Colombier Acquisition Corp. — the SPAC affiliated with 1789 Capital — the pair played an outsized role in bringing that agenda to Wall Street. Malik, a mega-donor to the Republican party, has also backed Rumble and is affiliated with Truth Social — both dealing with free speech and First Amendment protections.
Send NYNext a tip: nynextlydia@nypost.com
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
18 minutes ago
- Yahoo
2 Magnificent S&P 500 Dividend Stocks Down 2% and 16% to Buy and Hold Forever
Key Points Home Depot and PepsiCo have seen results affected by larger economic forces. Home Depot will undoubtedly see sales growth accelerate when people take on major renovations. PepsiCo has a stable of well-known brands. 10 stocks we like better than Home Depot › Over the last year through July 18, the S&P 500 index has gained 13.6%. However, while certain stocks have done well, others have lagged. Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and PepsiCo (NASDAQ: PEP), two well-known companies, have been laggards. They have lost 1.8% and 15.9%, respectively, during this time. The market seems to have become concerned about short-term issues while ignoring the business' long-term strengths. That provides an opportunity for investors, who should get rewarded for their patience. In the meantime, you can collect dividends while waiting for their results and stock prices to recover. 1. Home Depot Many homeowners and professional contractors shop at Home Depot. The largest home-improvement retailer offers convenience and competitive prices. Its results can be sensitive to the economy, and more specifically, the housing cycle. Macroeconomic factors, such as interest rates, housing sales, and employment affect Home Depot's sales. Right now, people have been holding off on major home projects as high prices for things like food and housing eat away at discretionary income. Additionally, elevated interest rates have made borrowing, and hence large renovations, more costly, causing people to put them on hold. That's certainly hurt Home Depot's top line. Fiscal first-quarter same-store sales (comps) fell 0.3%, although foreign-currency translations subtracted 0.7 percentage points. The period ended on May 4. However, at some point, homeowners will proceed with renovations. It's just a matter of time before people remodel the kitchen or bathroom, for instance. When they do, it seems likely they'll return to Home Depot. In the meantime, shareholders can enjoy the 2.6% dividend yield, more than double the S&P 500's 1.2%. The board of directors also has a history of increasing payments. It has boosted dividends every year since 2010. Even during the Great Recession, Home Depot kept payments constant from 2007 through 2009. Aside from prioritizing dividends, the company has the wherewithal to keep making payments. Management expects this year's diluted earnings per share to fall about 3% from $14.91. That works out to about $14.26 a share, which would easily cover the $9.20 annual dividend. 2. PepsiCo PepsiCo has a stable of beverage and convenience food brands. These include Pepsi, Gatorade, Doritos, and Quaker. Nonetheless, sales have been sluggish, hurt by consumers weary from overall price increases. PepsiCo recently reported second-quarter results. Adjusted sales, which remove foreign-currency translation effects and acquisitions/divestitures, rose 2%. However, volume remained under pressure, subtracting 1.5 percentage points, while price increases were responsible for a 4-percentage-point increase. Management continues to expect low-single-digit-percentage revenue growth this year. The market seemed relieved by these results, sending the stock price up 7.5% following the earnings release. While that's encouraging, PepsiCo can't rely solely on price increases to drive revenue growth. It will need to boost volume. Based on its well-established brands that have a strong presence in the marketplace, I expect that it will happen once consumers get their bearings. Meanwhile, management and the board of directors certainly have confidence in PepsiCo's long-term future. Earlier this year, it increased the quarterly dividend by 5%. It looks like the company can easily cover the $5.69 annual rate since it expects adjusted EPS to come in above $8. PepsiCo has an impressive dividend history that not many other companies can claim. The recent increase ran its streak to 53 straight years, making the company a Dividend King. The stock has an attractive 4% dividend yield. Should you invest $1,000 in Home Depot right now? Before you buy stock in Home Depot, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Home Depot wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $665,092!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,050,477!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,055% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Lawrence Rothman, CFA has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Home Depot. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 Magnificent S&P 500 Dividend Stocks Down 2% and 16% to Buy and Hold Forever was originally published by The Motley Fool Sign in to access your portfolio
New York Post
19 minutes ago
- New York Post
What Ghislaine Maxwell really knows and why she could finally spill all on Jeffrey Epstein: sources
Ex-socialite Ghislaine Maxwell will try to cut a deal with federal authorities during a jailhouse meeting with Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, sources told The Post. Blanche said Tuesday he plans to meet with the convicted madam, currently serving a 20- year sentence in Florida for sex trafficking young women for her former boss, notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. 'She's going to make a deal,' said Alan Dershowitz, a lawyer and law professor who was pals with, and previously represented, Epstein, who died in federal custody in August 2019. 'That's the way things are done. They make deals with the mafia, so I'm certain they are going to try to make a deal with her.' 8 Epstein and Maxwell (center) pose with Gwendolyn Beck( right), a former girlfriend of disgraced former New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez. Getty Images 8 Ghislaine Maxwell pictured during a prison interview from FCI Tallahassee in Florida. Talk TV A separate legal expert explained meeting with Blanche presents an opportunity for Maxwell to potentially lessen her sentence or get out of prison in exchange for spiling secrets about her and Epstein's life, which she has closely guarded since his death. Dershowitz has referred to Maxwell, 63, as the 'Rosetta stone' of information about Epstein, and told The Post Tuesday 'she knows everything — not just about the perpetrators but the victims. And she knows about the victims who became perpetrators.' Some of Epstein's victims – which number over 1,000 in total according to the Department of Justice – were groomed to recruit other young women, according to court papers. 8 Prince Andrew was forced to pay more than $16 million in a court settlement to Virginia Giuffre years after she accused him of having sex with her. Maxwell has been closely associated with Epstein since the death of her publishing magnate father Robert Maxwell in 1991. The pair were inseparable at high society parties across New York and the world spanning the next two decades. Maxwell benefitted from Epstein's mysteriously accumulated fortune, while she was seen as his social fixer, able to gain the somewhat unrefined character access to rarefied society circles. Maxwell – who was, at one point, Epstein's girlfriend – got him access even to the UK royal family and facilitated his friendship with Prince Andrew. The British prince shelled out more than $16 million to Virginia Giuffre, one of the young women recruited by Maxwell and Epstein. Giuffre, who took her own life in April, also alleged she had been passed around as a sex slave to others, although their identities have never properly been established. 8 Ghislaine Maxwell clutches a photograph of her father, the legendary British press baron. Getty Images 8 Ghislaine Maxwell's family claims that she is in danger at FCI Tallahassee, where living conditions are poor. Maxwell said through her brother she would be willing to testify before a Congressional Committee on her relationship with Epstein. It could be the first time federal prosecutors hear her version of events, as both her defense lawyers and prosecutors said they had not engaged in plea negotiations which would require such an interview before her trial. Her lawyers at the time said she did not need to negotiate as she was innocent. The case has been thrust back into the spotlight by the justice department's promise to release all the information gathered by the FBI from raiding Epstein's properties earlier this year, only to then walk it back. A Justice Department-FBI joint memo concluded the 66-year-old financier killed himself in a federal lockup and did not have a 'client list' of powerful friends who allegedly took part in sexual encounters with underage women. With no more information expected to be released by the federal government, Maxwell's version of events once again becomes of prime importance. 8 Ghislaine Maxwell was Jeffrey Epstein's closest confidante. Mathieu Polak She is believed to have kept silent while her appeals process played out for fear of jeopardizing her chances in the case. However, with most of her possibilities of appeal recently exhausted – apart from one petition to the Supreme Court – she may now feel compelled to give her side of the story. Her brother, Ian Maxwell, speaks to his sister frequently and has, alongside other members of his family, fought her corner since her initial arrest in 2020. He also denied the existence of a client list of powerful people girls had been trafficked to. 'Let's not try and big it up for more than it is. I think it was a high-quality address book. I don't think it constitutes 'a list', let alone a list of alleged people to whom young minor girls were trafficked,' Ian told 'Piers Morgan Uncensored'. 'Ghislaine's position on this, for what it's worth, has been, she doesn't ever believe that such a list existed.' Ian Maxwell has also said he believes his sister should never have been prosecuted due to a deal Epstein cut with Florida federal prosecutors when he was first convicted of sex offenses in 2007. 8 Ghislaine Maxwell during an interview from prison with the UK's Talk TV from January 2023. Talk TV In exchange for pleading guilty to lesser charges of soliciting a prostitute, the deal Epstein signed said he and any co-conspirators would be immune from further federal prosecution. New York prosecutors later argued successfully in court that the deal's jurisdiction ended in Florida. Maxwell was then convicted after a trial in New York in 2021, and has been serving her sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Tallahassee, a low security prison, since July 2022. 8 Ghislaine Maxwell (left) with her father Robert Maxwell and her mother Elizabeth Maxwell at Cannes festival in 1987. Steve Wood/Shutterstock Her family has long claimed the prison is unsafe and Maxwell is subject to poor living conditions, and frequently placed in solitary confinement. They also say they fear for her life. 'Prisons are very dangerous places and we know from Ghislaine that there are serious staff shortages and more dangerous higher-risk-category prisoners now being admitted to … Tallahassee,' said Ian Maxwell. With questions about the circumstances of Epstein's death in federal prison in 2019 still raging, some fear for Ghislaine's wellbeing and vulnerability while in prison. President Trump has blasted the Epstein saga as a 'hoax' and ripped a faction of his supporters who have fixated on the scandal, which involved allegations of orgies and sexual encounters on Epstein's private plane, his homes in Palm Beach and Manhattan as well as Little St. James, his former private island in the Caribbean. However, he approved of the outreach to Maxwell on Tuesday, saying: 'I think it would be something — sounds appropriate to do, yeah,' according to Politico.
Business Insider
20 minutes ago
- Business Insider
U.S. officials visit Mali as junta eyes economic and security ties
Junta-led Mali is courting U.S. investment and backing in its fight against Islamist insurgents, as it works to strengthen a regional bloc of military-led governments in West Africa. Mali's junta government is seeking U.S. support in combating Islamist insurgents and fostering economic cooperation. U.S. officials, including Deputy Assistant Secretary William Stevens, met with Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop in Bamako to discuss these matters. Mali aims to strengthen ties within a regional bloc of military-led governments, which face diminished U.S. security partnerships. Junta-led Mali is courting U.S. investment and backing in its fight against Islamist insurgents, as it works to strengthen a regional bloc of military-led governments in West Africa. On Monday, U.S. officials met with Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop in Bamako. The delegation was led by William Stevens, the U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for West Africa, Bloomberg reported. 'We discussed the fight against armed terrorist groups supported by foreign state sponsors,' Diop said. Other topics discussed included the potential for deeper economic cooperation, particularly through increased American private investment in Mali, as well as opportunities made possible by what officials described as improvements in the country's business climate. The meeting, at least the second between U.S. and Malian officials this month, shows Washington's attempt to re-engage in a region where its security presence has significantly diminished. Last year, the U.S. withdrew troops from Chad after being asked to vacate a military base, and also shut down a drone facility in neighbouring Niger. Alliance shift Mali, Chad, and Niger form part of a corridor of military-led governments stretching from Guinea on the Atlantic coast to Sudan on the Red Sea. As U.S. security partnerships in these countries have unravelled, many have pivoted toward alternative alliances, most notably with Russia. On the security front, Russian mercenary forces have become key backers of Mali's transitional government, led by Colonel Assimi Goïta, following the exit of French and U.N. troops who had supported counter-insurgency operations in the country for more than a decade. Russia's growing influence also extends to the economic sphere. Earlier this month, construction began on a new Russian-backed gold refinery near Bamako's international airport. Spanning five hectares, the facility will be capable of processing up to 200 metric tons of gold annually, which is four times Mali's current capacity of approximately 50 tons.
