Donald Trump Jr. is backing what critics have dubbed the “steroid Olympics” – a aggressive sporting occasion that encourages the usage of performance-enhancing medicine.
The Enhanced Video games revealed on Thursday that Don Jr.’s enterprise agency 1789 Capital will co-lead a multi-million-dollar funding spherical for the controversial group.
The fundraising spherical may increase double digit tens of millions of {dollars} for the venture, a supply near the matter instructed the Monetary Instances. The precise determine was unclear.
The aim of the video games is to interrupt main sporting data by permitting athletes to dope up with virtually any legally out there performance-enhancing medicine, whereas paying them handsomely for his or her participation.
“The Enhanced Games represent the future – real competition, real freedom, and real records being smashed,” Trump Jr. stated in a press release. “This is about excellence, innovation, and American dominance on the world stage – something the MAGA movement is all about.”
Trump Jr.’s partnership with the video games – which former president Biden condemned final 12 months – aligns along with his father’s contentious shake-up of presidency drug and well being insurance policies.
On Thursday, the Senate confirmed divisive vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Trump’s secretary of Well being and Human Providers.
Although he has campaigned along with his father, Trump Jr. doesn’t have an official White Home place.
The Enhanced Video games have already discovered backers in crypto investor Balaji Srinivasan and Christian Angermayer, a German billionaire with investments in biotech and psychedelics.
Peter Thiel, enterprise capitalist billionaire and co-founder of PayPal and Palantir Applied sciences, is one other investor with ties to the White Home.
Thiel confronted controversy after he funded the takedown of gossip information website Gawker, bankrolling wrestler Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit towards the media firm over his leaked intercourse tape.
The litigation was led by Australian businessman Aron D’Souza, now the president of the Enhanced Video games.
“With these powerhouse investors, we’re building something revolutionary – sports without hypocrisy, where the best can actually be the best,” D’Souza stated in a press release.
The video games could be partially funded by promoting from pharmaceutical firms, D’Souza instructed the FT.
The Enhanced Video games haven’t but introduced a metropolis or date for its first competitors, which can embrace athletics, swimming and “strength” occasions.
The group is aiming to host the primary video games in late 2025 or early 2026, in accordance with its web site.
Only one athlete, retired Australian Olympic swimmer James Magnussen, has signed up for the video games after the group provided to pay him $1.5 million if he can shatter the 50 meter freestyle file.
“If they put up $1m for the 50 freestyle world record, I will come on board as their first athlete,” he instructed a sports activities podcast earlier this 12 months.
“I’ll juice to the gills and I’ll break it in six months,” he added.
The World Anti-Doping Affiliation and the Worldwide Olympic Committee have spoken out towards the video games, calling them irresponsible.
On its web site, the Enhanced Video games declare “safer sports” is one in every of its foremost priorities, promising to manage medical screenings to athletes forward of sporting occasions.
