Op-Ed

Membership Has Its Privileges: Don Jr.'s Business of Selling Access

A $500,000 clubhouse, a $3 billion fund, and a portfolio fat with federal contracts — this is what monetized proximity looks like.

By USANewsOne Staff Writer

Published

Donald Trump Jr. has found his true vocation, and it isn't hunting or podcasting. It's selling access to his father — wholesale, retail, and by annual subscription.

Start with the clubhouse. In 2025, Don Jr. co-founded Executive Branch, a private members' club in Washington with a reported $500,000 initiation fee, per CNBC. According to the club's public record), founding members included crypto and tech moguls with obvious business before the administration. The pitch is barely coded: pay half a million dollars, mingle with the people who run the government. It is lobbying with a coat check.

Then there's the money engine behind it. Don Jr. is a partner at 1789 Capital, the self-styled anti-woke investment firm that, per Bloomberg, is now in talks to raise $3 billion for a second growth fund atop the roughly $4 billion it already manages. Its portfolio reads like a map of administration-adjacent power: SpaceX, xAI, Anduril, Polymarket. In September 2026, Forbes reported the fund would put $300 million into a $1 billion Polymarket round.

Now connect the dots the firm would rather you didn't. A CNN investigation found that companies in 1789's portfolio have hauled in enormous federal funding during Trump's second term — the outlet tallied more than $1.6 billion in federal contracts and grants to ten of its defense, space, and software holdings in roughly the administration's first 500 days. The president's son runs a fund; the president's government writes the checks to the fund's companies. You do not need a finance degree to see the flywheel.

The pattern has drawn formal scrutiny. House Judiciary ranking member Jamie Raskin demanded answers from 1789 Capital over what he characterized as insider deals. Whether or not any single transaction is illegal, the arrangement is corrosive by design: it lets favor-seekers invest alongside the first family and lets the first son profit when federal dollars flow to shared bets.

Defenders insist the returns prove skill, not favoritism — the first fund reportedly delivered triple-digit gains. But that's precisely the problem. When the upside comes partly from government contracts awarded on your father's watch, "we're just good investors" is not an alibi. It's a confession dressed as a brag.

The Executive Branch club distills the whole enterprise into a single price tag. Access used to be something lobbyists chased through back channels and campaign donations. Don Jr. streamlined it: one payment, one membership card, one room where the people writing the rules take your call. Every other American gets the government they can petition. The half-million-dollar tier gets the government they can dine with.

This isn't entrepreneurship. It's the commercialization of a presidency, and the eldest son is its most enthusiastic sales rep. The brand is MAGA. The product is proximity. And business, for now, is very good.

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