Title: Founder of Valor Equity Partners, Former head of DOGE Immigration Task Force
Industry Affiliation:
- Gracias is the founder of private equity firm Valor Equity Partners, which has invested in several Elon Musk companies—SpaceX, Tesla, the Boring Company, xAI, Neuralink—as well as other AI-related companies, including AI chip company Mythic and defense tech firm Anduril.
- In addition to his investments, Gracias sits on the board of directors of several Valor-backed companies, including SpaceX. In February 2026, SpaceX acquired Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI and later rebranded the company as SpaceXAI.
- In January 2026, Valor raised $5.4 billion to buy Nvidia chips for xAI and founded Valor Compute Infrastructure to lease data center infrastructure for the company.
- Valor and Gracias benefitted from SpaceX’s initial public offering, which valued its 4% stake in the company at nearly $100 billion. Gracias’ networth ballooned to over $24 billion as a result.
- In June 2026, Valor invested in an AI startup founded by former DOGE staffers Nate Cavanaugh and Justin Fox that they marketed as bringing “the ethos of [their] work at DOGE back into the private sector.” Gracias also recently told investors that Valor was looking to invest in AI and energy startups, as well as startups founded by former SpaceX engineers.
- Cavanaugh and Fox were both deposed as part of a lawsuit regarding DOGE’s cancellation of grants at the National Endowment for the Humanities. Fox had used ChatGPT to search grants and identify those that “relate at all to D.E.I.” to refer them for termination. In his testimony, Fox said a grant for a documentary on a 1873 massacre of Black men in Colfax, Louisiana by the Ku Klux Klan was DEI “Because it focuses on exclusively anti-Black violence, which is a race.” When asked about cutting a grant for a documentary about Jewish women in forced labor camps during the Holocaust, Fox said, “It’s a Jewish — specifically focused on Jewish culture and amplifying the marginalized voices of the females in that culture. It’s inherently related to D.E.I. for that reason.”
- Gracias previously served on Tesla’s board of directors from 2007-2021 and is regularly described as Musk’s “close friend” and “trusted advisor.”
Revolver/Government Experience
- Gracias led DOGE’s immigration task force, which embedded DOGE agents at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The task force also coordinated efforts between SSA, DHS, and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to amalgamate data on undocumented immigrants from each agency’s systems.
- DOGE agents at DHS created a database on undocumented immigrants that pulled information from across government agencies in order to identify, surveil, and crack down on immigrants.
- Gracias led the task force’s work to revoke the Social Security number of over 6,000 undocumented immigrants that had parole status in order to induce “self-deportations.”
- As a member of DOGE, Gracias was first assigned to the Social Security Administration (SSA) in March 2025. At SSA, he claimed to be reviewing audits of the agency with members of his private equity firm. During his tenure, Gracias joined Musk in the rampant spread of misinformation about noncitizens voting and receiving Social Security payments.
- During a Wisconsin rally for a judge running for the state Supreme Court, Gracias appeared on stage with Musk and claimed that noncitizens who were legally given Social Security numbers through the Enumeration Beyond Entry program were undocumented, registered to vote, and given “max pay” from Social Security, all of which is false.
Government Affairs
- 2026: SpaceX spent $440,000 on lobbying efforts across four firms—American Defense International, Harbinger Strategies, J.A. Green and Company, and Williams and Jensen PLLC— largely on issues related to national security and space launches.
- 2025: SpaceX spent $900,000 on lobbying efforts across five firms—American Defense International, Harbinger Strategies, J.A. Green and Company, Mercury Strategies, and Williams and Jensen PLLC—including on issues related to broadband infrastructure, the National Defense Authorization Act, and space launch issues.
For more check out AI Villains and The Trump Administration