The Defense Tech Newcomers,
Venture capital executives like
#Joe #Lonsdale are well positioned to profit in the second Trump administration

A founder of the A.I.-powered data analytics giant #Palantir Technologies, he has more recently delivered billions of dollars to defense sector start-ups such as #Anduril and #Epirus and #Saronic.

Executives at these defense technology firms have been frustrated at the slow pace of the Pentagon’s shift away from traditional contractors like Lockheed Martin
to venture-capital-backed start-ups selling cutting-edge tools like A.I.-powered drones.

“Current regulatory regime still favors the legacy defense corporations and crowds out upstarts,”
Mr. Lonsdale, who donated more than $1 million to Mr. Trump’s affiliated political groups,
said in an email to The New York Times.

#Trae #Stephens, another defense-tech venture capitalist and donor to Mr. Trump, said that the open question will be if the president-elect can limit turnover in leadership at the Pentagon, which was a problem during his first term.

“You need to have enough stability that someone can come in and take a leadership position and drive to a better outcome,”
Mr. Stephens, who works at #Founders #Fund and is a founder of #Anduril, said in an interview last week.

#Harold #Hamm, the billionaire founder of the Oklahoma-based oil and gas giant Continental Resources, donated more than $4 million to political groups that supported Mr. Trump.
Most of it came after Mr. Hamm and other oil-industry executives attended an April dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Mr. Trump’s Florida residence and club,
where he pressed the executives to contribute to his campaign, suggesting they would save far more than that in avoided taxes and legal fees after he repealed environmental regulations.

More recently, Mr. Hamm has been part of Mr. Trump’s transition team, which is pushing to
eliminate a ban on new natural-gas export terminals
and to abolish the Biden-era tax credit on electric vehicles
— meaning more continued demand for oil and gas, as Reuters first reported last week.

“The mineral wealth of the U.S. government is tremendous, but you have to develop that,” Mr. Hamm said in an interview last week with an industry trade publication, Hart Energy. “Certainly, Trump will do that.” Mr. Hamm declined a request to comment.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/17/us/politics/trump-presidency-billionaires.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The flag of Agistri island, Saronic gulf, Greece.

Agistri means "hook", that's why it appears in the top left corner.

#agistri #island #saronic #SaronicGulf #greece #flag #agistriflag