Mother Jones illustration; Alex Brandon/AP; Alec Tabak/New York Post/AP; LinkedIn
A new, ultra-private, super-exclusive club for the Trump oligarchy has opened in Washington, DC. Dubbed the Executive Branch and offering memberships that cost up to $500,000, the club, located in a spot beneath a Georgetown mall, aims to be a safe space for the Trump clan as well as hangers-on, who are likely to include big shots with interests before the federal government and desires to sway the administration. The initial media coverage of the club has noted the president may become a regular visitor.
Founding members reportedly include David Sacks, the tech tycoon who is now Trump’s crypto and AI czar and the chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology; the Winklevoss twins, whose crypto firm was sued by the Securities and Exchange Commission; Chamath Palihapitiya, a venture capitalist and podcaster; and Jeff Miller, a prominent Trump fundraiser and mega-lobbyist. On the list of owners are Donald Trump Jr.; Zach and Alex Witkoff, the sons of the president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff; Omeed Malik, a venture capitalist and business associate of Trump Jr.; and Chris Buskirk, a close ally of Vice President JD Vance and cofounder of an influential conservative donor group.
It’s a line-up of Trump royalty. But at the top of the corporate structure of the club, as its president, is a much less well-known figure who previously has not been publicly identified with the high echelons of Trumpworld: a San Francisco real estate businessman named Glenn Gilmore. For years, he has been a close business associate of Sacks, and his role in the endeavor adds to possible ethics questions related to Sacks’ involvement in this operation, according to government ethics experts.
“On current facts, it is not clear whether there are any violations of laws or rules based on the role of David Sacks or others, or based on the possibility of lobbyists obtaining memberships,” Noah Bookbinder, president of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, says, “However, it is deeply problematic to have an expensive social club that is premised on the idea of wealthy people and interests paying significant sums of money for access to high-level administration officials. It contributes to a sense among Americans that the government is set up to cater to the wealthy and powerful, not regular people.”
Mother Jones sent a long list of questions to each Gilmore and Sacks regarding the club. Reached on the phone, Gilmore declined to discuss the venture and said all queries had to be addressed to the club’s press office. Sacks did not respond to the questions. Instead, a representative of the Executive Branch provided a limited reply to both sets of queries. “The Executive Branch club,” he says, “is a private, luxurious space for colleagues to connect without media interference. It is not about access to the Trump administration. Any claim otherwise is false and potentially defamatory.”
Gilmore is not a big macher in Trump circles. He’s not a Trump donor or fundraiser. Gilmore, though, does have extensive business links with Sacks, who has been a prominent champion of the club, who hosted its launch party, and who has called himself “member No. 1.”
“The real problem,” says John Peliserro, the director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University, “is that no official in a presidential administration should be promoting a business, including that club. It provides an opportunity for business partners and friends of members of the administration to do business out of the public eye.”
During a an episode last month of the All-In podcast, Sacks described the club this way:
We wanted a place to hang out, and the clubs that exist in Washington today have been around for decades. They’re kind of old and stuffy. To the extent there are Republican clubs, they tend to be more Bush-era Republicans, as opposed to Trump-era Republicans. So we wanted to create something new, hipper, and Trump-aligned… We want a place to go where you don’t have to worry that the next person over at the bar is some fake news reporter or even a lobbyist or something like that who we don’t know and we don’t trust… You want to go somewhere that’s highly curated.
He also said, “Since I’m in the government I can’t be an owner [of the club].”
For years, Sacks has had financial ties with Gilmore, the fellow who, according to corporate filings, is running the show. That means Sacks, Trump’s influential crypto and AI guy, is promoting a clubby venture that could be lucrative for a business associate.
Gilmore is president of Brick & Timber Collective, a commercial real estate firm that specializes in developing spaces for VC and tech firms. The company’s portfolio includes at least 13 properties in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Miami, and its tenants have included tech mogul Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Atomic Labs, a VC incubator whose investors include Thiel and Sacks.
In April, Bloomberg, citing loan documents and people familiar with the matter, reported that Sacks is “a limited partner in projects” of Gilmore’s Brick & Timber Collective.
According to the Executive Branch representative, when the club was being formed, Malik, one of the owners, asked if Sacks knew a real estate developer who could help with the project, and Sacks recommended Gilmore. “David Sacks and Gilmore are not business partners but have collaborated on past deals,” he says. This representative adds, “Sacks has no financial interest in the Executive Branch club, directly or indirectly. His involvement has been reviewed and approved by government ethics attorneys.” He would not say whether Gilmore is being compensated by the club or holds an ownership interest in it.
The official corporate paperwork for the club identifies Gilmore variously as president, managing member, or director. In March, he incorporated a company called Executive Branch LLC located at the address for the club. He was listed on that registration as a director or officer. That month, a company with the same name and operating address was incorporated in Wyoming. A subsequent trademark application described the enterprise as a “private members dining club” and listed Gilmore as its managing memo. A later form filed with Wyoming designated Gilmore as the president of the company.
Addresses that appear on the various corporate records for Executive Branch LLC are associated with different Sacks’ businesses. Its initial filing in Wyoming noted its mailing address was 855 Front Street, San Francisco. That building is owned by 855 Front Street LLC, a Delaware firm registered in California by Gilmore in 2016 and that had the same address as Sacks Ventures, one of Sacks’ companies. According to California corporate records, Sacks Realty LLC, another Sacks enterprise, is listed as an officer of 855 Front Street LLC. The 855 Front Street property is also an address for Sacks’ Craft Ventures VC firm.
In April, the mailing address for Executive Branch LLC in the Wyoming corporate records was changed to 55 Green Street, San Francisco. This is a property near 855 Front Street and owned by Brick & Timber Collective. According to SEC records, Sacks Realty and Gilmore were both guarantors of a $36 million mortgage for this Green Street property.
There are other business ties between Gilmore and Sacks. The same day Gilmore incorporated Brick & Timber Collective in California, Sacks registered a company with the same name as doing business in San Francisco. In its articles of incorporation, Brick & Timber Collective listed as its address a San Francisco building owned by Sacks. And according to corporate records, an entity called DS PPI LLC—for which Sacks served as a director—was once an officer of Gilmore’s Brick & Timber Collective; it no longer is.
The Executive Branch representative says, “Neither David Sacks nor any of his entities own any interest in Brick & Timber Collective.”
The corporate records for the Executive Branch club filed in Wyoming and Washington, DC, list no other directors or officers other than Gilmore. He appears to have no preexisting public connections to any of the owners and initial members other than Sacks. He has not been been a major political funder. According to Federal Election Commission records, the only donation he has made to a federal candidate in the past 10 years was a $2,000 contribution to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in June 2023.
In light of Sacks’ White House job overseeing both artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency policy, his business and financial interests have been a matter of controversy, with critics claiming his appointment presents a conflict of interest due to his extensive holdings and personal involvement in crypto and tech. In March, the White House issued Sacks a conflict of interest waiver and maintained he had taken “significant steps to minimize potential conflicts of interest” by divesting “hundreds of millions of dollars in digital assets.”
But in a letter to the Office of Government Ethics last month, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) contended that Sacks had not sufficiently divested his digital assets, and she asked if that office had been consulted regarding the waiver. She noted that because Sacks’ personal financial disclosure form has not been released, “the public cannot verify the waiver’s factual claims.” She also questioned whether his continuing association with Craft Ventures, which is heavily tech-focused, raises a conflict with his role as AI czar. Her office says she never received a response from OGE.
Government employees are entitled to social lives. But the arrangement with this new club seems rather comfy: The president’s crypto and AI adviser is promoting a plutocratic club that stands to earn millions of dollars in revenue for its owners (which includes a son of the president)—with some of that money presumably coming from the checkbooks or crypto wallets of lobbyists, donors, and others who might want favorable policies and decisions from the Trump administration. And a business associate of his is a key part of the action and perhaps in a position to benefit financially.
“No government official should be assisting a business associate in their financial interest,” Peliserro says. “It is unfair and there is a lack of transparency when people are interacting with Trump administration officials in an expensive private club that other people cannot access.” Bookbinder adds, “That some of those profiting from this enterprise have close connections to the administration makes it problematic.”
Trump once proclaimed he would drain the swamp in Washington. Instead, it looks as if his kin and crew are developing it.