Democrats Play the Trump Family Game Too?
The son of New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat, has raised $30 million for a derivatives startup operating in a market with ties to the cryptocurrency industry, drawing comparisons to the kind of family enrichment for which critics have long attacked President Donald Trump.
Theodore Gillibrand, 22, raised the funding round at a $300 million valuation for American Perpetuals Exchange Corporation, or APEC, a derivatives startup focused on perpetual futures, a financial product popularized by cryptocurrency exchanges. The round was led by venture capital firm Lux Capital. Theodore Gillibrand graduated from Stanford University the same week.
APEC plans to offer “perpetual futures,” leveraged derivatives that never expire, tied to U.S. equities and stock indexes. The instruments, commonly known as “perps,” have been popularized by offshore cryptocurrency exchanges, though APEC says its platform is designed for regulated U.S. financial markets.
According to a June 4 memo presented to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), APEC plans to seek Designated Contract Market and Derivatives Clearing Organization licenses. The company is also seeking a special exemption to list perpetual futures on single-name equities under joint oversight from the SEC and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
Senator Gillibrand is one of the Senate’s most prominent advocates for digital asset regulation. She cowrote the GENIUS Act, which regulates stablecoins, and is a lead Democratic negotiator on the pending Digital Asset Market CLARITY Act, a market-structure bill for digital assets.
Theodore Gillibrand said the company aims to bring perpetual futures into “a regulated and institutional American company,” rather than leaving the market to offshore exchanges. While APEC does not plan to trade cryptocurrencies, its flagship product-perpetual futures-has been closely associated with crypto markets.
No criminal wrongdoing has been alleged against Senator Gillibrand or her son. No investigation by the SEC, the Department of Justice or the Senate Select Committee on Ethics has been reported in connection with APEC.
Newsweek reached out to Senator Gillibrand’s office for comment on Thursday. A spokesperson referred Newsweek to the senator’s June 18 statement to Politico:
“My son is a grown adult starting his own independent business. I have no involvement in it whatsoever,” Gillibrand said in a June 18 statement to the news outlet. “That said, I’m enormously proud of him and wish him nothing but the best.”
Critics Question Potential Conflicts of Interest
The venture has drawn criticism from progressive watchdogs. In The American Prospect, Fletcher Calcagno and Dylan Gyauch-Lewis of the Revolving Door Project argued that the deal raised questions about whether Gillibrand’s family was benefiting from her political stature.
“Gillibrand stating that her son is an adult capable of making his own decisions may be true, but it does little to put to rest the question of whether her immediate family is ‘cashing in’ on her stature.”
The authors pointed to Theodore Gillibrand’s prior internships and fellowship at crypto-focused firms Andreessen Horowitz and Paradigm, drawing a comparison to the Trump family’s World Liberty Financial venture.
“A 22-year-old graduate receiving a massive valuation to run a company dedicated to "casino-like" financial instruments is quite a feat,” they wrote.
Politico reported on July 2 that nearly three dozen investors backed APEC, including Ripple co-founder and executive chairman Chris Larsen, hedge fund manager John Griffin, Washington investor Mark Ein and Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey.
The outlet also reported that Larsen, Griffin and Ein had previously donated to Senator Gillibrand’s campaigns, though it did not specify amounts for Griffin and Ein. Federal Election Commission records compiled by cryptocurrency news outlet BeInCrypto show Larsen donated $5,000 to Gillibrand’s leadership political action committee, Off the Sidelines, during the 2024 election cycle. Gillibrand’s most recent personal financial disclosure, however, shows neither she nor her husband own or trade individual stocks or cryptocurrency.
An APEC spokesperson, Annica Benning, confirmed the investor list and described the individuals as “longtime friends and mentors” of Theodore Gillibrand. Benning said most investors contributed between $5,000 and $10,000 each.
A representative for Larsen, Alex Tourk, said Larsen was unable to discuss the investment but was “proud to support the organization.” Griffin, Ein and Anduril did not respond to Politico’s requests for comment.
Theodore Gillibrand previously held a fellowship at Paradigm, a cryptocurrency-focused venture capital firm, and an internship at Andreessen Horowitz. In May 2025, he wrote an article in The Stanford Review, urging Congress to pass the GENIUS Act.
The Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group, has pointed to what it called the “suspiciously close timing” of cryptocurrency industry fundraisers and legislation introduced by Gillibrand and Wyoming Republican Senator Cynthia Lummis.
The two senators formed a joint fundraising committee on May 3, 2022, introduced the Lummis-Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act on June 7, 2022, and attended a fundraiser hosted by cryptocurrency firm Multicoin Capital on June 11, 2022.
Gillibrand has said the CLARITY Act should include an ethics provision barring senior officials from profiting from industries they regulate.
“There will be no one voting for this bill if we don’t have an ethics provision.”
She has called officials profiting from industries they oversee “the worst form of pay for play.”
The scrutiny comes as Gillibrand’s standing with New York voters has weakened. A Marist Poll conducted from February 16 to February 19 found 51 percent of voters rated her job performance as fair or poor, her weakest standing since September 2010. The poll surveyed 1,552 adults and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Family Business Dealings Have Drawn Scrutiny Across Parties
The Gillibrand case is part of a broader debate over whether relatives of elected officials can profit from businesses that intersect with their family members’ public roles.
Among the most prominent examples is Hunter Biden, son of former President Joe Biden. Hunter Biden joined the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma Holdings in 2014 while his father was vice president, earning as much as $50,000 a month in some periods, according to reporting by The New York Times and a September 2020 report by Senate Republicans. He also cofounded China-based investment fund BHR Partners in 2017.
House Republicans later alleged the Biden family and associates received more than $10 million from foreign sources through what they described as an “influence-peddling” scheme. Investigators did not establish that Joe Biden personally received the payments identified or changed U.S. policy because of his family’s business dealings, and the House never voted on articles of impeachment. Hunter Biden has since said joining Burisma’s board was “a mistake.”
Joe Biden’s brother, James Biden, also faced scrutiny after receiving a $200,000 payment from hospital operator Americore in 2018. The same day, Joe Biden wrote his brother a $200,000 check marked “loan repayment,” according to Politico. Americore later alleged in bankruptcy filings that James Biden suggested his family name could “open doors.” No charges were filed.
Questions about family finances have also surfaced in Congress. Paul Pelosi, husband of former Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, has faced years of scrutiny over his stock trades. In 2022, he sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia the day before the Senate passed the CHIPS Act, a transaction that resulted in a loss of more than $340,000. It was previously valued at about $4.1 million.
Pelosi’s office said she had no knowledge of or involvement in her husband’s investments and that the sale was intended to avoid further “misinformation.” No charges have been filed.
The late California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein’s husband, financier Richard Blum, also drew scrutiny over business interests in China and government contracts awarded to companies he controlled while Feinstein served on a Senate appropriations subcommittee overseeing military construction. Blum denied wrongdoing, and no charges were brought.
More recently, Minnesota Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar’s husband, Tim Mynett, reported a stake in his political consulting firm valued from $5 million to $25 million in Omar’s 2024 financial disclosure. The figure was later revised downward, which her office attributed to an accounting error. The conservative National Legal and Policy Center filed an ethics complaint over the discrepancy.
The scrutiny has fueled broader calls for tougher ethics rules. Under the STOCK Act, members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children must disclose securities transactions exceeding $1,000 within 45 days. Adult, financially independent children, such as Theodore Gillibrand, are not covered by those disclosure requirements.
Members of Congress remain subject to insider trading laws, but no lawmaker has been prosecuted under the STOCK Act since it took effect in 2012, and the penalty for late disclosure is $200.
Lawmakers from both parties have introduced proposals, including the Restore Trust in Congress Act and the Stop Insider Trading Act, which would ban stock trading by members of Congress, their spouses and dependent children. Ethics groups including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Campaign Legal Center have argued that disclosure alone is insufficient and have called for broader restrictions that also cover family members.
Comparisons to the Trump Family
The Gillibrand case has also revived comparisons to the business activities of President Trump’s family, which has faced scrutiny over potential conflicts between private ventures and public office.
Trump’s 2025 financial disclosure, certified by the Office of Government Ethics on June 30, reported more than $2.2 billion in income, including over $1.4 billion from cryptocurrency, digital tokens and related partnerships, according to The Washington Post. Much of the crypto income came from the $TRUMP meme coin and World Liberty Financial, a venture cofounded by Trump’s sons Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
A Reuters investigation published June 9 found the Trump family generated at least $2.3 billion in profits from four cryptocurrency ventures after Trump returned to the presidency. The report also found that, as of the end of April, more than 1 million investors had collectively lost $2.3 billion.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, also has faced scrutiny over his business dealings. His investment firm, Affinity Partners, received a $2 billion investment from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund six months after he left the White House. The firm has since collected at least $112 million in management fees.
Former Georgia U.S. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican who broke with Trump earlier this year and resigned from Congress in January, said on ABC’s The View on July 8 that she had once been among the “loudest voices attacking Hunter Biden” but was “really blown away” by the Trump family’s financial gains.
“I was one of the loudest voices attacking Hunter Biden for what I perceived to be corruption while his father was president, but I was really blown away,” Greene said. “Most people are blown away. Even Fox News had something to say about it.”
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle dismissed Greene’s criticism, calling her “a quitter who is pathetically trying to stay relevant by going on liberal media shows to bash President Trump.”
The White House has denied that the president or his family have profited improperly. “Neither the President nor his family has ever engaged, or will ever engage, in conflicts of interest,” a spokesperson said in a statement to Newsweek.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Edward T. Cummins.
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This story was originally published July 10, 2026 at 4:00 AM.