The guy running the Pentagon used to own defense contractors. The guy running federal hiring used to run the VC firm whose companies are now staffing the agencies that regulate them, stock intact. And the watchdogs who were supposed to flag all of this? Fired before any of these people walked in the door. Three stories. Zero coincidences.
The Man Who Ran A16Z Is Now Running Federal Hiring, and His Old Friends Are First in Line
Scott Kupor used to run Andreessen Horowitz — the VC firm behind Coinbase, Facebook, Palantir, and half the Silicon Valley donor class. Trump made him head of OPM, which controls federal hiring for the entire U.S. government. Kupor’s first move was to build Tech Force: a program that places private-sector tech workers inside federal agencies, where the partner list is every company his old firm ever backed. The employees keep their stock. They keep their corporate benefits. They spend two years shaping the exact policies that govern their employers. The program was built on the grave of 18F and USDS — the ethics-compliant tech teams DOGE gutted specifically to create the vacancy Tech Force is now filling. Nobody is hiding this. It’s in the press release.
The Guy Who Runs the Pentagon Used to Own the Companies Bidding on the Pentagon’s Biggest Contract
Steve Feinberg spent thirty years building Cerberus Capital Management into a $65 billion private equity empire — buying and running defense contractors the whole time. Then Trump made him the second-highest-ranking official at the Pentagon. Now Cerberus-linked companies are among the thousands already awarded contracts for Golden Dome, the missile defense project allocated up to $151 billion that could cost $3.6 trillion over twenty years. He filed paperwork saying he divested, which involved putting assets into irrevocable trusts for his adult children. ProPublica released 3,200 financial disclosure records this week and found the same pattern at every single agency — it isn’t just Feinberg, and the specific mechanisms that were supposed to catch this were deliberately dismantled before the contracts were awarded.
They Gutted the Watchdogs Before They Made the Appointments
The Social Security commissioner sold $530 million in Fiserv stock right before the company crashed 40% in a single day. The SEC chair held $6 million in crypto investments – then dropped every winning enforcement case against crypto companies after taking over. Both followed the rules. That’s the problem: Trump cleared out the watchdogs before any of these people were hired – fired 17 inspectors general, removed the head of the Office of Government Ethics, and on day one killed the rule preventing appointees from working on issues tied to their former clients. The receipts are in the disclosures. ProPublica just released 1,500 of them.
Wanna go deeper? The Tech Oligarchy section at rachelandthecity is where the revolving door between Silicon Valley and federal power gets documented — every VC, every appointment, every conflict that should have disqualified someone but didn’t.
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