Founders Fund

Founders Fund's three anchor positions constitute a highly concentrated private-capital exposure to U.S. defense and intelligence technology. The fund was the first institutional investor in both SpaceX and Palantir Technologies, and has participated in every Anduril Industries funding round since its 2017 inception ². As of mid-2025, the unrealized SpaceX position is estimated at $18.2 billion; the Palantir position generated $2.1 billion in realized proceeds at an 18.5x return; and the $1 billion Series G commitment to Anduril (June 2025) is the largest single check the fund has written ⁷. Anduril holds $2.3 billion in total Department of Defense contracts, with Anduril also serving as the second-largest contractor to the Department of Homeland Security at $862 million all-time ².

Beyond the three flagship positions, the fund co-incubated Varda Space Industries, which provides DoD with materials for heat shields, navigation systems, and hypersonic flight computers alongside its commercial pharmaceutical manufacturing mission, as well as General Matter and Valinor ². Founders Fund V Management also maintained 88,621 shares of Rigetti Computing (NASDAQ: RGTI) across all five quarters from Q4 2024 through Q4 2025, at values ranging from $700,000 to $2.6 million, representing Founders Fund's only publicly disclosed defense-adjacent equity position in that period ³. The entire investment universe across four major defense-oriented VC funds held zero traditional defense prime contractor equities—no Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, or General Dynamics positions appeared in any 13F filing from Q4 2024 through Q4 2025. Analysis of 13F filings indicates this pattern is consistent with a focus on pre-IPO private positions that fall outside 13F disclosure requirements ⁴.

The structural feature that distinguishes Founders Fund from conventional institutional defense investors is the company-creation function. The Anduril idea originated at a Founders Fund retreat in 2014; Trae Stephens, then a Founders Fund partner, subsequently recruited Palmer Luckey to co-found the company. Stephens retains his Founders Fund partnership while serving as Anduril's Executive Chairman, and led the DoD transition team for the first Trump administration in 2016. According to reporting cited in the investigation record, Stephens was considered for the Deputy Secretary of Defense position during the 2024 transition ². The fund's $1 billion Series G anchor investment was made while Stephens simultaneously held the Anduril chairmanship, creating a direct line between fund economics and portfolio company governance that extends into federal procurement.

Founders Fund Growth III LP (CIK 0002059945) filed a Form D on April 11, 2025 disclosing a total offering of $4,595,493,889 raised from 270 investors, with the first sale dated March 28, 2025. The GP structure runs through Founders Fund Growth III Management LP, with FF Upper Tier GP LLC as its GP. Three managing members signed the filing: Peter Thiel, Napoleon Ta, and Trae Stephens ¹. A successor vehicle, Founders Fund Growth IV LP, was incorporated in Delaware on January 28, 2026, but had filed no Form D disclosures as of the date of this research ¹.

ProPublica financial disclosures filed by Trump administration appointees document at least 14 officials holding Founders Fund interests, with 141 disclosing positions in Palantir Technologies—making the Thiel investment network among the largest single-investor groups represented in the administration per that dataset ⁸. The deepest embedded position belongs to Kenneth Howery, Founders Fund co-founder and current U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, whose OGE 278 financial disclosure lists carried interest positions in FF Alpha Management LLC, FF Management LLC, and FF II through IV Management LLCs, plus limited partner interests in multiple fund vehicles, with individual position bands ranging from $1 million to $500 million ⁹. His April 25, 2025 ethics agreement requires divestiture of Palantir, Tesla, and several other holdings, but permits him to retain his Founders Fund IV Principals Fund LP position, a 3% interest in future Founders Fund vehicles, and his SpaceX holding—recusing himself from matters where those holdings are directly implicated ¹⁰. Notably, Anduril Industries does not appear on Howery's divestiture list or in his recusal obligations, despite Founders Fund being Anduril's largest single institutional investor at $1 billion-plus. One documented characterization of this gap describes Howery's ethics agreement as explicitly excluding Anduril from recusal obligations ¹¹.

Jacob Helberg, Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment, discloses Founders Fund positions across Funds V through VIII with 20–30% carried interest, alongside $100 million to $250 million in Palantir stock and $840,000 in Palantir consulting fees ¹². Joseph Popolo, U.S. Ambassador to the Netherlands, discloses LP interests in Founders Fund V and VI each valued in the $100 million to $250 million range, plus a Palantir equity position, while serving as ambassador to a key NATO host country and seat of the International Court of Justice ¹³. Clayton Cromer, OPM Deputy General Counsel, discloses a Founders Fund asset, having joined OPM—the agency overseeing federal workforce restructuring—from Latham & Watkins in January 2025 ¹⁴.

No Lobbying Disclosure Act filings were found for either Founders Fund as a client or any Founders Fund partner as a registrant. By contrast, Palantir Technologies has maintained active LDA filings since 2006, with more than 20 disclosure records ¹⁵. No FARA registrations were identified for any Founders Fund partner ¹⁶.

FEC records show $2.47 million in employee and partner donations with employer listed as Founders Fund across 200 documented contribution records. The fund's partners collectively directed 84% of that giving to Republican committees and candidates ¹⁷. The largest individual block—$1.59 million attributed to Peter Thiel—flows primarily through Grow the Majority ($877,000) and NRCC ($646,000), with additional tranches to NRSC and at least ten state Republican parties ¹⁷. Keith Rabois contributed $585,000; Kenneth Howery $103,000; Joseph Krug $82,000; Jacob Helberg $41,000 (in addition to $2.97 million documented under his Palantir employer listing, including $1.86 million to Trump-specific vehicles) ¹⁷, ¹⁸. Thiel's 2025 FEC record shows continued giving to the Congressional Leadership Fund, RNC, and multiple state Republican parties, with employer listed as Founders Fund ¹⁹. Thiel also contributed $1.5 million to America PAC in 2024 and has documented over $20 million in total political spending across the investigation record ².

Three PayPal co-founders—Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, and Keith Rabois—built three vehicles that the investigation record characterizes as forming a triangulated network: Founders Fund (Thiel, Howery, Nosek), 8VC (Lonsdale), and Palantir Technologies (Thiel and Lonsdale as co-founders) ²⁰. The defense portfolios overlap directly: Founders Fund is Anduril's largest institutional investor, while 8VC's defense portfolio includes Palantir, Anduril, Saronic, Epirus, and Chaos Industries. 141 Trump administration appointees hold Palantir positions; 14 hold Founders Fund interests; the same individuals frequently appear in both disclosures ⁸, ²⁰.

A new financial layer entered this network in early 2026. Erebor Bank, co-founded by Palmer Luckey (Anduril CEO), received OCC charter approval in February 2026 with $635 million in initial capital and a $4.35 billion valuation. Its backers include Founders Fund, 8VC, and Lux Capital. The investigation record describes this configuration as placing the same investor network that backs defense startups in a position to also control the bank that may serve those startups ²⁰. No Founders Fund Form D disclosing an investment in Erebor Bank had been filed as of the date of this research.

The Founders Fund SpaceX Fund LP (CIK 1464202), a dedicated SpaceX investment vehicle formed in Delaware in 2009, raised $6.74 million from 29 investors with Peter Thiel, Kenneth Howery, Luke Nosek, and Sean Parker as managing members of the GP, FF Alpha Management LLC ²¹. Howery's subsequent personal SpaceX holding (disclosed at $100 million to $200 million in his OGE 278) is therefore layered on top of a prior direct management role over the fund's SpaceX vehicle—while he now serves as U.S. Ambassador to Denmark, which exercises oversight jurisdiction over Pituffik Space Base in Greenland, a facility with documented SpaceX and DoD relevance ²¹.

The primary active litigation is Banzai Advisory Group LLC v. The Founders Fund VII, LP (1:24-cv-00599, D. Del.), a federal RICO action filed May 17, 2024. The plaintiff, Banzai Advisory Group (associated with GloriFi founder Toby Neugebauer), alleges, according to the complaint, that Founders Fund VII and a syndicate of co-investors used convertible debt instruments to acquire blocking rights over GloriFi's capital structure, installed board representatives including Keri Findley, prevented competing capital raises, and misappropriated intellectual property for use by competing companies ⁵. Named defendants alongside Founders Fund VII LP include its parallel Principals Fund LP and Entrepreneurs Fund LP vehicles, Vivek Ramaswamy Investments LLC, the Lonsdale Family Revocable Trust, the J. Nicholas Ayers 2021 Irrevocable Trust, Jackson Investment Group LLC, GFNCI LLC, Seven Talents LLC, Descante Capital LLC, and individuals Keri Findley, Manuel Rios, Britt Amos, Cason Carter, and Jerome Fadden. Kenneth Howery is not named as a defendant. The case is assigned to Judge Colm F. Connolly and remained active as of September 9, 2025 ²².

The GloriFi litigation web extends across five related proceedings. A parallel Georgia RICO action, WPI Collateral Management v. Ramaswamy (1:24-cv-02148, N.D. Ga.), was filed one day before the Delaware action on May 16, 2024, but was terminated October 3, 2024. GloriFi (With Purpose Inc.) filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy on February 8, 2023 (23-30246, N.D. Tex.). The bankruptcy trustee subsequently filed adversary proceedings against Neugebauer (24-03038), against Banzai Advisory Group (25-03009), and against Neugebauer again (25-03007), all in the Northern District of Texas Bankruptcy Court. According to court records, an appeal by Ayers against Neugebauer (25-10572) is pending in the Fifth Circuit ⁶.

A separate matter, Chang v. Cashman (3:22-cv-02010, N.D. Cal.), was a diversity breach-of-contract case involving Founders Fund filed March 29, 2022, assigned to Judge Araceli Martinez-Olguin, and terminated April 18, 2025, after approximately three years of litigation ²³.

SEC EDGAR records confirm ten Founders Fund entities registered in Delaware and filing with the Commission: Founders Fund I LLLP (CIK 1494301), Founders Fund II LP (CIK 1426012), Founders Fund II Entrepreneurs Fund LP (CIK 1456068), Founders Fund Growth LP (CIK 1797273), Founders Fund Growth Principals Fund LP (CIK 1806856), Founders Fund Growth Management LLC (CIK 1853431), Founders Fund Growth II LP (CIK 1910667), Founders Fund Growth II Principals Fund LP (CIK 1912096), Founders Fund Growth III LP (CIK 2059945), and Founders Fund Growth III Principals Fund LP (CIK 2062082). A search of the full EDGAR corpus returns 9,038 filings referencing Founders Fund, with key co-filers including Bruce Dunlevie, Kevin Harvey, and Scott Banister ²⁴.

Three additional named SPV vehicles are confirmed through California and Delaware registry records: FF Humbition Inc. (Delaware, December 2015), FF Slow Inc. (Delaware, April 2015), and FF Longevity Inc. (Delaware, May 2017), all registered to the Founders Fund headquarters at One Letterman Drive, Building D, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94129. The portfolio companies behind these SPV names are not publicly disclosed ²⁵. 13F-HR filings from FF IV Management (CIK 1616081) and FF II Management (CIK 1695329) contained only placeholder entries with zero reportable holdings across all five quarters from Q4 2024 through Q4 2025. Analysis of the filing pattern indicates this is consistent with structuring to maintain the bulk of positions in pre-IPO private vehicles that are not subject to 13F reporting obligations ⁴.