Pirate lore is full of references to "pieces of eight." The Spanish dollar coin was used in America as currency until 1857. At times it was the preferred currency.
Trump II, as chairman, brings considerable risk from his spontaneously launching "savage whims." That's what Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are there to contain. A majority of Executive Board members are currently PEUs or have that in their background.
The board is charged with leading areas "critical to Gaza’s stabilization and long-term success, including, but not limited to, governance capacity-building, regional relations, reconstruction, investment attraction, large-scale funding, and capital mobilization."
Private equity underwriters (PEU) have a reputation as financial barbarians for the way they takeover and carve up corporate spoils. Trump II does that to countries.
That PEU presence extends down to Senior Advisors named to the Executive Board.
PEU Apollo CEO Marc Rowan did not look kindly on college students protesting the widespread killing of innocent women and children as Israel razed Gaza. Will he really work to make life better for the people there?
Ask any employee who had their company taken over by a PEU in the last twenty years how much their new owners cared about workers.
Politicians Red & Blue love PEU and their new TechGod brethren. Increasingly, more are one. Trump has demanded the PEU/TechGod billionaire class orient solely towards him. In return Trump II makes a way for them to spread further around the globe, into where no PEU/TechGod has gone before. Gaza's financial barbarian intrusion is clearly underway.
Update: Jared Kushner's Affinity Partners ($150 million) and Marc Rowan's Apollo (>$1.8 billion) both invested in QXO, a tech-forward leader in the building products distribution industry.
...new investors committed until July 15, 2026 to purchase up to 185,500 shares in the aggregate of a new series of Series C Convertible Perpetual Preferred Stock, par value $0.001 per share (the “Series C Preferred Stock”), of QXO for an aggregate purchase price of $1.855 billion (at a stated value of $10,000 per share) (the “Convertible Preferred Investment”). As a result of the commitments by the new investors, the Convertible Preferred Investors, including the initial investors party to the Investment Agreement, have committed to purchase up to 300,000 shares of the Series C Preferred Stock for an aggregate purchase price of $3.0 billion.
Jared Kushner joined the QXO board of directors as the fifth independent director.
