US President Donald Trump reacts as he speaks at the Curtis D. Menard Memorial Sports Center in Wasilla, Alaska, US, October 13, 2026.
The New York Times reports Republican gubernatorial candidates Rick Jackson and Vivek Ramaswamy appear to be ensnared in a failed MAGA-leaning bank that collapsed into bankruptcy three years ago.
“With plans to market credit cards made out of the same metal used for shell casings, the company had the backing of a who’s who of right-wing billionaires,” reports the Times. “Major investors included Peter Thiel, Ken Griffin and Jeff Sprecher, as well as two Republicans now vying to be governors, Vivek Ramaswamy in Ohio and Rick Jackson in Georgia.”
But the company swiftly imploded and filed for bankruptcy months after launching its website.
“Amid an avalanche of litigation, accusations and aggrieved creditors, Mr. Jackson saw an opportunity,” reports the Times. “He poured millions more last year into what remained of the defunct company, seizing on an audacious plan to turn his GloriFi bet into a winner by positioning himself at the center of an ongoing legal clash of more than half a dozen Republican billionaires.”
Now Jackson -- a candidate for Georgia governor -- decides who gets sued, and who doesn’t, according to the Post.
“Not in a million years would I have allowed anybody in government to maintain this kind of arrangement because of the extreme danger of a conflict” of interest “or the appearance of a conflict,” said Norm Eisen, former White House ethics counsel who reviewed the list of creditors.
“It’s one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen,” he added, pointing out that some creditors “could be seen as susceptible” to pressure from a governor. “You need to completely separate and appoint an independent trustee to manage this. And you screen yourself off so you don’t have an actual conflict or the appearance of a conflict.”
When contacted by the Times, the Jackson campaign would not say whether Jackson would dial back his litigation efforts if he is elected governor of Georgia. The Ramaswamy campaign did not respond to Times’ questions.
GloriFi is not the only MAGA-aligned business that has faltered since its creation. Like others, it arose in the aftermath of the first Trump administration, targeting “people focused on faith, freedom and free enterprise that felt left behind and ignored by liberal Wall Street companies,” according to the Times. “Founder Toby Neugebauer is a Texas billionaire and Republican donor who worked with Nick Ayers, Mike Pence’s former chief of staff, to assemble investors, said the Times.” He brought on podcaster and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens to help pitch the company.
But billionaires caught up in the bankruptcy litigation include a roster of Trump supporters including Joe Lonsdale, a Trump ally and Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade and a Republican megadonor, reports the Times.
Another litigant is major investor Jeff Sprecher, who chairs the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange and is married to the former Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler, the head of the Small Business Administration.