When we last left Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News primetime host was teaming with one-time White House adviser and old college roommate Neil Patel to raise funds for a new media company.
The venture was expected set up shop at X, formerly Twitter, but the team was also reportedly exploring housing the network on other platforms.
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Carlson had been ousted from his top-rated news program on Fox News earlier this year, and there was speculation that he was a part of the fallout from Fox News' $787.5 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems over defamation allegations.
Now Carlson and Patel have reportedly found a backer in the form of Omeed Malik, the founder of Farvahar Partners and 1789 Capital, which, according to the Wall Street Journal, aims to capitalize on the opportunities that it sees left open by the “wokeness” of more traditional sources of capital.
WSJ News Exclusive: Tucker Carlson’s media company lands the first investment led by 1789 Capital, a new “anti-woke” venture firm that sees a lucrative “parallel economy” of conservative-friendly companies https://t.co/amYxMWYrog
— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 17, 2023
On Oct. 17, 1789 Capital made its initial investment, leading a $15 million seed round with other private investors into Carlson and Patel’s new company.
'No institutional structure'
The company has been registered in Nevada under the holding company name Last Country, Inc. Malik is familiar with Carlson and Patel, having invested in an earlier media venture of theirs, the Daily Caller.
The goal of 1789, which is named for the year the Bill of Rights was written, is to get Carlson and Patel’s company to the point of showing a proof of concept for its online video-driven business model, so the pair can continue raising the hundreds of millions of dollars they are eventually targeting, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Carlson and Patel’s venture will be driven by subscriptions, but also offer a stream of free online videos of Carlson and other talent.
Carlson has been posting free video content on X, including as his high-profile interview with Donald Trump that streamed during a recent GOP presidential debate.
Malik, a former Bank of America managing director, thinks some right-leaning business ventures have failed to sustain mass appeal because they didn’t have sophisticated financial backers.
“What has happened up to now is you’ve had some rich benefactor, who is ideological, put a company in business, but then there is no institutional support to continue to finance that business,” Malik said.
The Carlson investment is structured as a SAFE, short for Simple Agreement for Future Equity, a common arrangement pioneered by Silicon Valley startup accelerator Y Combinator that often doesn’t assign a valuation to the startup.
The investment in Carlson and Patel’s venture is part of 1789’s thesis of “EIG” investing, short for entrepreneurship, innovation and growth. It is meant as a response to the ESG — or environment, social and governance — ethical investing standards that have been championed by funds such as BlackRock as good business but have sparked a backlash on the right.
Trump voters offer sizable market
Malik told the Journal that he sees the addressable market as, at minimum, the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump.
Entrepreneurs targeting this market cite the market value lost when Bud Light lost its place as the bestselling beer in America after consumers organized a boycott in response to collaboration with a transgender influencer for marketing.
“Where’s the money going to go?” Malik said. “I want us to be the beneficiary of it.”
Malik also stepped up for anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president as independent.
In May, Malik took Kennedy to a private dinner at the Bellagio in Las Vegas to meet with an array of political power players, CNBC reported.
The guest list included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Trump economic advisor Gary Cohn, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and ex-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
On Oct. 6, Malik was listed as the CEO of a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, called Colombier Acquisition II, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The blank check company filed for a $130 million initial public offering and is seeking to effect a business combination with a company in the "entrepreneurship, innovation and growth economy" with a target enterprise value of $150 million to $2 billion.
Malik’s first SPAC, Colombier Acquisition, merged with PublicSq to form PSQ Holdings PSQH, which describes itself as “a leading marketplace of patriotic businesses and consumers.”
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