CNN's Michael Smerconish interviewed James Fishback, CEO of Azoria Investments and creator of the DOGE dividend, Saturday morning. Smerconish asked how the idea came to be:
...it came to me in a dream. I woke up, I called our head of research at Azoria. We met at Capitol Grill, we fleshed this thing out in two hours.The story sounded fishy. It turns out Fishback is/has been an outside DOGE advisor, according to Business Insider. Their story (one month old) stated:
One day after Vivek Ramaswamy announced he is leaving the Department of Government Efficiency, James Fishback, co-founder and CEO of the investment firm Azoria, told Business Insider he's ready to fill the open role.
Fishback, a confidant of Ramaswamy, has said he's already worked as an outside advisor to DOGE.
Though he's based in Florida, Fishback said he plans to stay in Washington, DC for a few more days and will meet with employees in the White House.
This guy is a DOGE insider, not some investment guy who had a brilliant dream, i.e. received political manna from heaven.
In the CNN interview Fishback displayed the same condescending, irritating style as Vivek Ramaswamy, the man he'd wanted to replace as DOGE co-head.
Smerconish worked hard and was able to contain his guest. However, it took this statement:
I don't want to be that guy. Do I have to silence your microphone so that I can respond to what you've said? Because there's so much fallacy in what you've just offered.Fishback's reply:
Please don't (inaudible).James Fishback's background information states he was "an investor with Greenlight Capital and founder of Azoria Investments."
Fishback was at Trump's Mar-a-Lago this past December to launch Azoria Meritocracy ETF, an exchange-traded fund (ETF) set to invest in S&P 500 companies that don't engage in diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
...demanding, overly aggressive, and tightly wound, or treated people around him like ‘personal servant[s].The judge in the case let those words stand as the lawsuit proceeds.
Court's intention is to move this case forward with urgency, given the nature of the allegations and the claim that Fishback continues to wrongfully possess confidential information of Greenlight's.I'll close with a few other findings. Fishback's relationship with Vivek Ramaswamy can be seen in his X posts.
Your fishy DOGE dividend story describes what all private equity pass through entities do with an overburdened debt structure, which is to create a pass through entity before the structure collapses. They are handing out bread crumbs to accelerate and allow you to participate fully in the collapse. MORSELS for the masses, big plates for the INSIDERS/ oligarchs who bring the big knives and forks into the U.S. resource carve out. They have everyone rooting for their own destruction! Are you entertained ? Winning !Consider the timing of this political manna from heaven:
The idea took off on Tuesday when Fishback tweeted about it and Musk responded, pledging to share the idea with Trump. The president himself promoted the specifics of Fishback’s idea from the stage at the FII Priority Summit in Miami Beach on Wednesday.
"We sent it to [White House chief of staff] Susie [Wiles], sent it to some folks in the admin, sent it to some folks at Treasury, and here we are a day or so later, with it being shared with President Trump from Elon. And so it’s exciting.”
"James Fishback had a dream, oh, that poor handmaiden....no, not that one.. James had a dream that Trump II, the digital Caligula could pump even more cash into the pockets of income tax paying Americans."
the rebate would be sent only to households that are net-income taxpayers — people who pay more in taxes than they get back — with lower-income Americans not qualifying for the return.
A manufactured story for a manufactured strategy to send Uncle Sam's cash to non-poor people. That fits.
Update 2-25-25: Trump shared Fishback's dream idea at a heavily attended PEU event, FII Priority.
Update 2-26-25: Red Team members of Congress shared concerns about the DOGE dividend. One said the following according to Fox News:
"I think it's childish. Now we want to take the money for waste, fraud, and abuse that was collected by the federal government and give everyone $5,000…or we could just pay off the national debt, or we could use that for the next round of appropriations we have to pay for here in Congress."
Update 2-27-25: National Economic Council Chief Kevin Hassett pumped the DOGE projections and revenue expectations from Trump II's $5 million immigration purchase program. He supported the DOGE dividend check even with remaining deficit spending.
Update 3-1-25: Fishback told NewsNation the dividend is "restitution" for crumbling roads and bridges as well as for veterans being denied essential healthcare. The DOGE dividend is like crypto with its unending reasons for being. None of the crypto rationalizations make sense and the DOGE dividend is similarly vapid. Predators, like Fishback, are convincing to most people due to the passion with which they spout drivel.
Update 3-20-25: Semafor reported:
True believers will soon have a new way to ride the stock back up: MAGA investment firm Azoria yesterday announced a turbo-charged Tesla ETF that uses derivatives to amplify gains (and losses).Azoria's webpage remains unchanged. An SEC search of Azoria produced no matches. The three Azoria ETFs are under a Tidal III SEC filing dated 3-19-25.
