Two years ago, Donald Trump, Jr. and Omeed Malik rang the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange as renegades. They had just turned PublicSquare, a Yelp-like directory of conservative businesses, into a publicly traded company, marking the emergence of a movement rebelling against “woke-ism” with their wallets. When the pair returned on July 16, the environment on Wall Street had changed dramatically.
With Donald Trump back in power and waging war on corporate diversity initiatives, some of the nation’s largest companies have eliminated so-called DEI programs, from McDonald’s and Walmart to Boeing and Victoria’s Secret. But as Trump, Jr. and Malik launch the IPO of a PublicSquare partner—the online gun retailer GrabAGun—the two suspect corporate America may be adjusting to the political climate out of fear and expedience. In contrast, they aim to build a lasting infrastructure for the MAGA economy. “I think what separates us from them is: Where are they going to be in two years if the winds change?” Trump, Jr. tells TIME.
GrabAGun is the latest in a succession of Trump-allied companies to go public through merging with a special purpose acquisition company, known as a SPAC. First, there was Rumble, a right-wing alternative to YouTube backed by billionaire Peter Thiel. Then there was PublicSquare. Following in his son’s footsteps, the President used the same strategy last year with his social media platform Truth Social, taking its parent company public under the ticker “DJT.” Most recently, Trump Jr. and Malik, a Republican mega-donor, have elevated the firearms seller some call the “Amazon of guns.” It will trade under the ticker “PEW”—as in the sound of someone imitating a gunshot.
In their eyes, the pattern reflects the maturation of a so-called parallel economy. When PublicSquare went opened on the NYSE in July 2023, the firm had generated less than $1 million in total revenue. While the company is not yet profitable, it is growing. In the first quarter of 2025, it took in $6.7 million in revenue, compared with $3.5 million during the same period a year before, according to an SEC filing. Similarly, GrabAGun, which sells firearms and ammunition on its website, raised $179 million in gross proceeds from the merger, according to a statement from the company.
Still, there are signs the parallel economy hasn’t fully caught on. The traditional retailers they accuse of engaging in woke capitalism remain dominant in sector after sector. PublicSquare’s stock is valued at only $2.37 a share. And after GrabAGun’s IPO on Wednesday, the stock tanked by more than 20%. But the parallel economy’s evangelists are betting that over the long haul, right-leaning countercultural businesses will be an enduring fixture of the American economy. “I think it’s still super nascent,” says Malik. “This is less than two years old.”
GrabAGun is just one part of the Trump family’s expanding business portfolio, which includes multiple cryptocurrency ventures and real estate deals at home and abroad. The White House maintains that none of the family’s private pursuits create a conflict of interest for the President, with his children now managing his assets. Critics say they create openings for Trump to advance policies that could help his family’s bottom line.
For Trump Jr., who joins the GrabAGun Board of Directors, and Malik, one of its financiers, companies like GrabAGun present opportunities to not only support alternative businesses but to push the culture in a rightward direction.
As a grand project, they’ve been thinking about it for a while. After the election, when Trump Jr. was no longer tethered to the campaign trail, he signed on as a partner at Malik’s investment firm 1789 Capital. “Once that was done, it was always going to happen,” Trump, Jr. says. “We’ve been talking about these ideas and this thesis for five years.” Despite Elon Musk’s public feud with President Trump, 1789 continues to invest in several of the billionaire’s companies, such as SpaceX and Neuralink, along with other private companies like Substack, Anduril, and Plaid.
Trump Jr. and Malik became aware of the gun-seller through PublicSquare, as GrabAGun enlists their payment processing system, PSQ Payments. Malik then took the company public through a merger with his SPAC, Colombier Acquisition Corp. II. “It’s all part of the ecosystem,” Malik adds. “You end up meeting these companies because of PublicSquare. GrabAGun ends up being a client and you start building all this.”
Sitting in a boardroom above the New York Stock Exchange, moments after ringing the opening bell, Trump Jr. and Malik tell TIME they plan to expand their reach. Soon, they will pick another conservative company to connect to capital markets. “We will do another SPAC, where we’ll go public again with another shell vehicle soon and be back in the market for another high-profile, meaningful company to take public again,” says Malik.
By then, Washington’s makeup might be different, and they are banking on an “all-weather strategy” to sustain their business model. In the meantime, the verdict is still out on whether the recent wave of avowedly ideological businesses is transitory or permanent, and whether a parallel economy inspired by the Trump movement can outlast Trump himself.
For now, they see their welcome on Wall Street as a sign that times are changing. “I think it’s a vindication of our thesis,” says Trump, Jr. “The floor of the New York Stock Exchange is probably a little bit of a higher testosterone environment than perhaps the rest of New York City, so I imagine that makes it more right leaning. But you see all the support. You didn’t see anything negative.”
Read the full article here
