While Vice President JD Vance publicly champions working-class Americans and rails against coastal elites, a different story unfolds in his financial disclosures.
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, companies backed by Vance’s venture capital investments have secured more than $220 million in federal contracts, with valuations skyrocketing by as much as 125%.
The numbers paint a portrait of unprecedented financial positioning at the highest levels of government.
Through his stake in Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund—worth between $100,000 and $250,000 according to his June 2025 disclosure—Vance maintains direct financial interests in at least four defense contractors now feeding at the federal trough.
But it’s the speed of the payoff that raises eyebrows: two aerospace companies in his portfolio landed multi-million-dollar Pentagon contracts within two weeks of the administration taking office.
Hermeus, which develops hypersonic aircraft, received $9.4 million from the Defense Department in early February.
Slingshot Aerospace, whose GPS monitoring technology has been deployed in conflict zones including Israel-Palestine, secured $1.7 million from the Air Force around the same time. These weren’t anomalies—they were the opening salvo.
The crown jewel remains Anduril Industries, the artificial intelligence defense contractor that Vance invested in during his time at Rise of the Rest.
Since Trump’s inauguration, Anduril has collected over $220 million in government contracts, and its valuation has surged by approximately 125%.
The company, which makes autonomous weapons systems—yes, AI-powered military hardware—was founded by Palmer Luckey, who donated significantly to Vance’s Senate campaign. Peter Thiel, Vance’s political godfather, is also a major Anduril investor.
Then there’s the Palantir connection. The surveillance technology company co-founded by Thiel has become the Trump administration’s data backbone, securing more than $113 million in federal spending since January—including a potential $10 billion Army contract announced in August.
While Vance doesn’t hold direct Palantir stock, his political career exists because of Thiel’s funding, and Palantir’s expansion under this administration directly benefits his mentor’s empire.
The architecture of Vance’s wealth reveals a man who built bridges between worlds and now profits from standing at the crossroads.
After publishing “Hillbilly Elegy” in 2016, he joined Thiel’s Mithril Capital before moving to Steve Case’s Revolution in Washington. There, Vance positioned himself as champion of overlooked American cities while quietly investing in defense tech and artificial intelligence companies.
In 2020, Vance founded Narya Capital—named after a Tolkien “ring of power,” because nothing says “man of the people” like fantasy literature references—with approximately $93 million from Thiel, Marc Andreessen, Eric Schmidt, and other Silicon Valley titans.
The firm invested in conservative platforms like Rumble and the Catholic prayer app Hallow, creating a portfolio that married right-wing cultural positioning with serious defense industry stakes.
Now Vance faces an impossible balancing act. His populist base—the same people who propelled Trump to power on promises to “drain the swamp”—is increasingly alarmed by Palantir’s surveillance expansion.
Conservative firebrands like Steve Bannon and Joe Rogan have sounded warnings about the company’s capabilities, creating rare bipartisan concern about Big Tech overreach.
Yet Vance remains conspicuously silent. When pressed about Palantir at tech industry events, he pivots to talking points about American technological dominance and staying ahead of China.
At a recent gathering of tech founders, he declared that “we should seek to dominate” new technologies, adding this is “certainly what this administration wants to accomplish.” The question of whose bank account benefits from that dominance goes carefully unasked.
The financial disclosure forms, required by law but filed late during his Senate run, show a man whose interests sprawl across more than 120 private companies.
Most individual stakes are valued between $1,000 and $15,000, but the cumulative effect—and the clustering around defense tech—tells a more coherent story.
Add in Bitcoin holdings worth $250,000 to $500,000, substantial positions in gold, and promised management fees from Narya Capital ranging from $500,000 to $1 million, and you have a vice president whose wealth depends on the very military-industrial-tech complex he once claimed to oppose.
Critics point to the revolving door, but that understates the problem. The door isn’t revolving—it’s been welded open.
Vance didn’t leave venture capital to serve the public; he brought venture capital into government and positioned himself at the nexus where public spending becomes private profit.
His fellow travelers have done the same: Donald Trump Jr. holds investments in both Anduril and SpaceX, while Thiel quietly works backroom deals that have sent Palantir’s stock soaring 140% since Trump’s election.
The ultimate irony? Vance built his political identity on “Hillbilly Elegy,” a memoir about escaping poverty and understanding the forgotten Americans left behind by globalization and elite indifference.
Now he’s become the embodiment of what his own book warned against: someone who climbed the ladder, learned the game, and plays it ruthlessly while claiming to represent the people still at the bottom.
When asked about potential conflicts of interest during his Senate campaign, Vance’s team repeatedly declined to answer. The silence speaks volumes.
You don’t need to explain how you’ll avoid conflicts when the conflicts are the business model.
As Trump’s health questions mount and Vance’s proximity to the presidency grows more tangible, the $220 million question becomes more urgent: What happens when the man who profits from defense contracts, surveillance technology, and cryptocurrency speculation becomes the one making decisions about how those industries are regulated, funded, and deployed?
The American public deserves an answer. But based on Vance’s track record, they probably won’t get one—at least not until the next financial disclosure deadline, filed late, with as little detail as legally permissible.
Some bridges, once burned, can never be rebuilt. Vance may soon discover that you can’t serve both Silicon Valley and Appalachia, both the defense industry and the American people, both Peter Thiel’s portfolio and the public interest.
He’s betting he won’t have to choose. His bank account suggests the bet is paying off.
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