1789 Capital's $300M Polymarket Follow-On: Inside Donald Trump Jr.'s Fund

Original title: "3億追投 Polymarket，揭秘特朗普長子入局的 1789Capital"
Original author: Ma He, Foresight News

On September 1, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that 1789 Capital, where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, plans to invest an additional $300 million in the prediction market platform Polymarket, bringing the total round to about $1 billion.

1789 Capital's relationship with Polymarket did not begin this week.

In August 2025, Polymarket announced a strategic investment from 1789 Capital and invited Donald Trump Jr. to join its advisory board. Reuters reported the same day, citing sources, that the investment was in the tens of millions of dollars.

From $100 million to $3.5 billion

The name 1789 Capital refers to the year the U.S. Bill of Rights was passed. The fund is headquartered in Palm Beach, Florida, with the slogan "Capital for the next chapter of American exceptionalism." It is not a crypto-native fund, but it is becoming one of the most prominent political capitals behind Polymarket's financing.

1789 Capital was founded in October 2022 by investment banker Omeed Malik, conservative publisher and investor Chris Buskirk, and Republican mega-donor Rebekah Mercer.

The idea for the fund came from a gathering of the donor network Rockbridge, which Buskirk and current Vice President JD Vance were involved in. Early roadshow materials described the strategy in three parts: the parallel economy, deglobalization, and industries harmed by ESG (environmental, social, and governance) principles. They coined an opposing label, EIG (entrepreneurship, innovation, growth). Malik's words: they do not invest in any company with ESG or DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) components.

The three founders' backgrounds define the fund's character, unlike traditional Silicon Valley institutions.

Omeed Malik

Malik was head of global hedge fund advisory at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. After leaving in 2018, he had a lawsuit with the bank that was settled for an eight-figure sum. In 2019, he founded boutique investment bank Farvahar Partners. He had donated to Hillary Clinton but later turned to Trump and became a Mar-a-Lago member. In 2025, he was appointed to the board of Fannie Mae.

Chris Buskirk

Buskirk is also a founder and chief investment officer of the fund. According to the official website, he is the founder and head of family investment firm Buskirk Capital, which drove the establishment of 1789 Capital.

Left: Donald Trump Jr., eldest son of Donald Trump

Donald Trump Jr. joined the fund as a partner less than a week after the November 2024 election. His personal relationship with Malik goes back further: they met in the Hamptons in 2018 through Kimberly Guilfoyle and were discussing investments together by around 2020. The New York Times wrote that both moved their families to Palm Beach due to dissatisfaction with pandemic restrictions. According to the official website, Trump Jr.'s focus is on sourcing new investments, deal flow, and strategy. His extensive network in business and investor circles provides 1789 Capital with considerable reach for its global network.

What truly turned 1789 Capital from a small fund into a market topic is scale. Publicly reported assets under management trajectory: initial target of about $100 million at founding, around $100 million by end of 2023. When Trump won and Trump Jr. joined, about $150–200 million. In May 2026, the Financial Times quoted partner Paul Abrahimzadeh: over the past year, it grew from $200 million to about $3.5 billion. On performance, in July 2026, The New York Times reported, citing sources, that the main fund returned about 200% as of June 30.

Investing in late-stage growth, defense and AI as core holdings

1789 Capital is not a seed fund. According to PitchBook, it has made over 40 investments, with the portfolio expanding from 5 early companies to about 40. Abrahimzadeh described the strategy bluntly in public interviews: buy industry leaders, preferably with an exit in one to two years; occasionally do early-stage, but the main position is growth stocks.

There are four verifiable heavy allocation areas.

One is defense and reindustrialization: Anduril, Hadrian, Firehawk Aerospace, Axiom Space, and rare earth magnet company Vulcan Elements. CNN reported in July 2026 that 1789 Capital has invested in over 10 defense, aerospace, and underlying software companies.

One is the Musk ecosystem. Fund partners have publicly said SpaceX is one of the largest positions in the portfolio; xAI, X, and Neuralink are also on the reported holdings list.

One is AI compute and models. Cerebras is the clearest realized investment: 1789 Capital entered at a valuation of about $8 billion, added at about $23 billion, and the company listed on Nasdaq in May 2026, becoming one of the largest IPOs of the year. Others include Groq, Reflection AI, PsiQuantum, Perplexity, Replit, and Skild AI. On the software side, there are Databricks, Ramp, Deel, and Plaid—the logic being application layers "enhanced by AI, not replaced."

One is their original culture business: the first investment in 2023 was Tucker Carlson's Last Country; the list also includes Juul and gun e-commerce GrabAGun. But what really accelerated fundraising was assets like SpaceX, Cerebras, and Anduril that institutions also compete for, plus the surname of the president's eldest son.

From casino to financial infrastructure

1789 Capital's bet on prediction markets—Trump Jr. himself explained the reason for entering.

At the 2024 Republican National Convention, he walked straight up to Polymarket founder Coplan, then 26, and said Polymarket's odds were closer to what he heard from voters than polls. Just two years earlier, Polymarket had been fined $1.4 million by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and ordered to block U.S. users.

In August 2025, Trump Jr. described the platform in a press release as a tool to "bypass media spin and expert opinion and let people bet on real judgment," emphasizing that "America needs access to this platform." For a fund that brands itself as anti-ESG and against "weaponized capital," prediction markets are framed as information rights, not gambling rights.

1789 Capital has invested in Tucker Carlson's Last Country, Musk's X, and now Polymarket. The fund is building a complete "anti-establishment decentralized information loop": X provides the public square, Carlson outputs opinions, and Polymarket provides real betting odds to crush traditional mainstream media polls.

When elite capital becomes deeply tied to a prediction platform, the platform falls from a decentralized oracle to a suspected insider manipulation venue. Once Washington changes power or bipartisan games escalate, Polymarket will directly become the top target for congressional antitrust and insider trading investigations.

Regardless, prediction markets are no longer just a crypto casino. The parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and the fund of the president's eldest son are using real money to write it into America's alternative financial infrastructure.