MW Trump's new investment partner was bragging just last year about its DEI credentials

By Brett Arends

What will the folks in red hats think?

It's barely a year since Jon DuPrau, a key partner in Donald Trump's new "nonwoke" investment business, was down in Boca Raton, Fla, bragging to a conference of colleges, teachers and endowments about his woke-friendly investment strategy.

"The Responsible Labor investment strategy is carefully constructed to identify and invest in companies that demonstrate superior practices in employee engagement, satisfaction, diversity and inclusion," DuPrau's firm, Index Technologies Group, boasts on its website, summarizing his comments. (My italics).

DuPrau and his firm are now partnering with Donald Trump and Trump Media & Technology Group $(DJT)$ to help launch a suite of investment products targeted instead at the MAGA crowd and the "nonwoke."

"At a time when the foundations of American prosperity are shifting, it's critical that our investment strategies reflect the values that define us," DuPrau said in a press release. "These strategies empower investors to align their portfolios with patriotic and ethical convictions."

Index Technologies Group uses proprietary data mining and algorithms to weed out companies according to different factors, so they can help you identify companies that are especially friendly to women, people of color and those of minority sexualities or sexual identities.

Or, I guess, they can help you identify companies that ... er ... aren't.

The company could not be reached for comment.

The flexibility of Index Technologies Group is only a sideshow to the bigger news - namely, that the president of the United States and his close associates are getting into the investment-management business even while Trump is in office.

Trump Media, the company majority-owned by the president and overseen by his children, announced this week it will offer new investment products targeted at the MAGA crowd and using investment strategies "rooted in American values and priorities."

The business will be targeted at the president's legion of red-hatted followers and cheerleaders, including the 29% of voters who told Rasmussen surveys, in the depths of the market turmoil two weeks ago, that they "strongly supported" him even while he was declaring a trade war against the rest of the world and collapsing the stock market.

It is Devin Nunes, the MAGA former Republican congressman and current chief executive of Trump Media, who bragged that the new investment accounts will be "nonwoke." The business will be branded Truth Social, to coincide with the web platform that TMTG owns and which the president uses.

Opposition to so-called woke companies, and "diversity, equity and inclusion" policies of all kinds, has become a key policy theme for Team MAGA and the Trump administration. (The term "woke" is not only ill-defined, but it is a movable feast. The term began on the more cultural left, typically referring to more radical identity-politics ideas such as critical race theory. It was then adopted by everyone not on the radical cultural left, to distance themselves from it. Now it is mainly used by people on the MAGA right to complain about people who aren't MAGA.)

No word yet on fees or investment minimums. The company says it will offer private, separately managed investment accounts, not exchange-traded funds. But of course: SMAs don't leave a public trail. Scurrilous members of the "FAKE NEWS" media - like, I guess, me - can't see what they're buying and selling, or watch how well they perform.

TMTG is getting into the investment-management business just days after the president, through his actions and actual Truth Social online posts, sent the U.S. stock market through historic gyrations.

It's the sort of conflict-of-interest nightmare that you'd imagine would interest the Securities and Exchange Commission, which has been Wall Street's watchdog since the Great Depression.

Especially as the sitting president owns a stake in the company currently valued at $2.5 billion. And has seen that stake gain around $350 million in value in two days since the new venture was announced.

The SEC has three commissioners: Mark Uyeda, Hester Peirce and Caroline Crenshaw. I emailed all three directly about the new Trump Media & Technology Group investment business. None replied.

Instead I got an email back from the press office that read: "Attributable to a spokesperson, we decline to comment."

Nothing to see here, folks! Move along.

Whether the folks in red hats want to hand over their retirement savings to the Trump family and its associates is a matter up to them. There is nothing wrong with trying to match your investments to your personal values.

Evidence is legion that active fund management - in other words, paying someone to pick individual stocks - rarely adds financial value. You typically end up with less than you would by just owning low-cost index funds, especially after the managers deduct their inevitable fees.

That may be more true with some organizations than others. Outside investors have not typically fared well in previous Donald Trump ventures, though on the bright side their massive losses helped lower their tax bills.

MAGA investors in Trump Media's stock have been suffering red ink to match their hats since the company's IPO last year. Even with a $2 jump Thursday, the stock is now at just $22, down from a peak above $60. It's down a third since the Nov. 5 election and nearly a half since the January inauguration. And the $TRUMP meme coin (TRUMPUSD) launched by the Trump Organization just before the inauguration has fallen by more than 50%.

But if MAGA investors want Donald Trump to do for their retirement savings what he is doing for America, I wish them nothing but luck.

-Brett Arends

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April 17, 2025 14:29 ET (18:29 GMT)

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