The Trump administration has taken equity positions in 41 private companies — from critical minerals to AI — justifying the deals as essential for national security. But with Democrats set to control the House and Senate in January, those arrangements face an unprecedented wave of investigation.
Congressional probes could focus on whether the government’s stakes serve genuine security priorities or give special favours to political and family connections, as Georgetown professor Sarah Bauerle Danzman told CNBC. The private sector lacks the legal privileges the executive branch can use to slow-walk inquiries, making businesses a more immediately vulnerable target.
The risk is real enough that corporate America is lawyering up. Lawyers report clients fear Democrats will use spending bills to penalise companies tied to Trump — for example, barring federal contracts for firms that accepted investment from a member of the president’s family.
The danger on the other side is equally serious. As Fox News warned, the same equity stakes could hand a future Democratic president powerful leverage over gun, oil and AI companies. The mechanism cuts both ways.
Good oversight would not unwind every deal, but set clear rules: government stakes must advance transparent national security aims, not personal or political interests. The alternative is a system where each party uses state ownership to benefit its allies — precisely the kind of cronyism the arrangements were meant to avoid.