Tao Zhu, Golden Finance

Abstract

On April 14, 2026, according to Reuters: Federal Reserve Chairman nominee Kevin Warsh listed dozens of future-oriented assets in his latest financial disclosure document, including Elon Musk’s SpaceX and prediction platform Polymarket. The document shows that Wash made dozens of seemingly smaller investments in a range of emerging and almost science-fiction-sounding projects.

Wash's major holdings give him more than $100 million in assets, including two holdings in Juggernaut Fund LP worth more than $50 million.

Warsh's image as the incoming Federal Reserve chairman has changed through documents disclosing investments in one of Warsh's companies called DCM Investments 10. His investment portfolio includes top crypto projects and VCs such as Polymarket, Solana, Compound, dYdX, Blust, 0G, Polychain, etc. He will also set his sights on the aerospace and AI company SpaceX, digital artificial intelligence, new herpes vaccines, long-acting reversible male contraceptive methods, etc.

This article takes stock of Wash’s investment empire.

1. Wash’s employment situation

According to the U.S. Office of Government Ethics (OGE) Public Financial Disclosure Report (Form 278e)

Wash’s personally controlled entities include:

Vicarage LLC (personal consulting firm, providing macroeconomic/investment advice to large institutions);

Vicarage Corporation (income collection, investment management, tax/structural optimization);

Multiple LLC entities (asset holding vehicles).

Company serving as consultant:

Duquesne Family Office (founded by Soros' partner Stanley Druckenmiller, it is a family office that specializes in macro investments including interest rates, exchange rates, and stocks, and is one of the world's top macro investors);

Cerberus Capital (private equity fund (PE), mainly engaged in company acquisitions, restructuring, etc., has been involved in investments in banking, military industry, real estate and other industries, and is one of the large PEs on Wall Street);

GoldenTree (credit hedge fund, invests in bonds, good at making money from crisis assets and junk bonds);

Heitman (a real estate investment management company, specializing in commercial real estate, REITs, real estate funds, and a global real estate institutional investor).

Company serving as director:

UPS (one of the world’s largest express delivery companies and a representative of the real economy);

Coupang (a South Korean e-commerce company with its own logistics system, a high-growth technology company, and a representative of Asian technology stocks);

Bessemer Securities (backed by Bessemer Trust, an old American wealth management family, which specializes in investment management and family wealth, and is one of the oldest financial family systems in the United States).

Others:

He is also a Shepard Family Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

2. Wash’s income

1. Consulting income

Duquesne Family Office:$10.2 million;

GoldenTree:$1.55 million;

Cerberus:$750,000;

Heitman: $650,000.

These consulting income from top hedge funds constitute his main source of income.

2. Remuneration (single year)

Warburg Pincus: US$90,000 (the world’s top private equity fund (PE), which mainly invests in unlisted companies in technology, finance, medical and other fields, and is one of the world’s oldest and most influential PEs);

State Street:$135,000 (asset management and custodian bank, helping institutions such as pension funds and sovereign funds to store assets and manage ETFs. It is one of the three largest ETF giants in the world and a global financial infrastructure company);

Eli Lilly:$122,500 (a large American pharmaceutical company that develops and sells drugs, such as diabetes drugs, weight loss drugs, etc., and is one of the pharmaceutical companies with the highest market value in the world);

Brevan Howard: US$750,000 (it is the strongest global top macro hedge fund in Europe, covering interest rates, exchange rates, inflation, macroeconomics and other fields).

Wash's speaking income has exceeded one million dollars in a single year.

3.Academic income

Stanford: $170,000 total.

3. Wash’s core asset structure

1. Cash and funds

Bank account: Millions of dollars;

Money Fund: JPM Treasury MMF:1 million to 5 million US dollars (JPM Treasury MMF: money market fund, mainly investing in U.S. short-term Treasury bonds and government bonds).

2. Index Fund

Vanguard 500 Index: US$250,000-500,000 (S&P 500 Index Fund, focusing on investing in the 500 largest companies in the United States);

Vanguard Balanced Fund: $1-5 million (a mix of stocks and bonds).

3. Stock holdings

Coupang:$1-5 million; RSU (unlocked)

UPS:Virtual shares range from US$1 million to US$5 million; RSUs range from US$1 million to US$5 million; dividends up to US$1 million

4. Private equity funds

Juggernaut Fund LP (private investment fund limited partner): Value exceeding US$50 million (single deal); revenue exceeding US$5 million

4. What does Wash himself invest in?

1.AI

• Recraft (a designer tool that uses AI to generate vector graphics)

• Volt (AI security, monitoring)

• 11x (Using AI to replace sales/customer service positions)

• Delphi AI (create AI avatar (imitation of speech, knowledge, style))

• Hebbia (AI financial analysis)

• Krea (AI image generation)

• Lindy (AI assistant, automatically perform tasks)

• Sesame AI (voice AI, including dialogue, customer service, etc.)

• Showrunner (AI-generated movies and plots)

2. Cryptocurrency

• Polymarket (prediction market)

• Solana (Blockchain)

• Optimism (Ethereum extension)

• dYdX (Decentralized Exchange)

• Compound (crypto lending)

• Polychain (crypto fund)

• Lemon Cash (crypto finance)

• Tenderly (Ethereum development)

• Zero Gravity (AI Blockchain)

• Brave (a privacy-focused ad-blocking browser)

• Blast (Layer 2 of Ethereum)
  

3.Aerospace

• SpaceX (aerospace + AI)

4.Biotechnology

• Outpace Bio (protein engineering, cancer treatment)

• Locus Biosciences (gene editing antibacterial)

• Rational Vaccines (vaccine research and development)

• Unnatural Products (drug discovery)

5.Financial Technology

• Stashfin (digital bank for emerging markets)

• Alpaca (Financial API)

• Moov (payment infrastructure)

• Nomad (cross-border banking services)

• Method Financial (user debt data interface)

6.Consumption/Platform

• Partiful (social activities)

• Snackpass (dining social)

• Wanderlog (travel planning)

• Wonderschool (childcare service)

7. Robot/Automation

• Cafe X (robot makes coffee)

• OSARO (warehouse robot)

• Watney Robotics (data center robot)

8. "Science Fiction" Project

• Cionic (bionic enhanced clothing, exoskeleton/assisted mobility)

• Friend (AI companion device)

• Persona AI (persistent AI personality)

5. Other assets

1. Spouse assets

Estee Lauder:

• Stocks: Greater than $1 million

• Dividends: US$50,000 to US$100,000

• Pension: up to $1 million

(Wash’s wife, Jane Lauder, is the daughter of Ronald Lauder, a member of the founding family of Estée Lauder.)

Eventbrite (event ticketing platform):

• Stocks: US$500,000 to US$1 million

Others:

• Restaurant Investment Casa Cruz (high-end private restaurant, members-only club, oriented to the social circle of wealthy people, is the entrance to Wash’s social resources)

• Racecourse (two)

• Club Loan

• Treasury Bonds (I-Bonds)

To sum up, Wash’s asset structure shows the characteristics of traditional financial core as the mainstay, supplemented by cutting-edge technology layout. This asset combination is extremely rare among central bank candidates.

6. The impact of Wash taking office

Wash is known for his pro-market views and his appointment could lead U.S. monetary policy in a new direction. Many view the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings as a critical moment in determining the future direction of the Fed.

Policy trends

The Fed's policy interest rate currently remains in the range of 3.5% to 3.75%, and the Fed's meeting minutes and official speeches in recent weeks indicate that inflation, oil prices and geopolitical conflicts are further delaying interest rate cut expectations, and some officials have even reopened the possibility of future interest rate hikes.

Wash has a clear hawkish reputation in the market and is widely seen as taking inflation control more seriously than Powell and being more cautious about balance sheet expansion.

Reuters previously pointed out that investors believed that he might support a simpler banking regulatory framework and maintain a stricter stance on the Fed's balance sheet; therefore, the market once believed that he was the kind of chairman who "may cut interest rates, but will not easily relax policy."

The problem is that the current macroeconomic environment does not support an "easy pivot." Minutes of the Federal Reserve meeting showed that officials were already discussing the oil price shock caused by the war in the Middle East and the risk of an inflationary rebound that might result from it.

In response, Wall Street firms have postponed their expectations for a rate cut in 2026, and some no longer even expect any rate cuts this year.

This means that if Warsh officially takes office in May, he will face not a market waiting for easing policy, but a market already being readjusted by oil prices and inflation.

Financial market trends

If Warsh is confirmed in office in May, the initial market reaction will typically come not from the real economy but from asset pricing.

In recent times, investors have viewed Warsh as a "more disciplined" chairman candidate; once this expectation is solidified, the dollar tends to strengthen and long-term Treasury yields may be the first to rise as the market prices in expectations of fewer interest rate cuts and tighter financial conditions.

Meanwhile, gold and growth stocks may face pressure in the opposite direction.

Gold is sensitive to both real interest rates and the U.S. dollar; if the Fed prioritizes curbing inflation over supporting economic growth, gold's upside potential will be restrained.

Growth stocks, especially highly valued technology stocks, are also more susceptible to changes in discount rates.

Wash's taking office is a macroeconomic turning point, and the discount rates of the U.S. dollar, bonds, gold, technology stocks and financial stocks must all be recalculated. What really needs adapting is not the selection but the Fed’s more cautious, less tolerant style of doing things.