Antonio Gracias, a longtime ally of Elon Musk and a high-ranking member of the initial DOGE team, has stepped down from his role in government, his equity firm announced on Thursday in a response to a request from a top teacher's union official.
Gracias is the chief executive, chief investment officer, and founder of Valor Equity Partners, a private equity firm that manages $17.5 billion in assets. Gracias had been volunteering at the Department of Government Efficiency since March and had focused on finding waste in the Social Security Administration among other areas.
The investor has served on the board for Musk's Tesla and SpaceX and shared Musk's skepticism of the financial health of Social Security. Gracias said that he believed there was "material weakness" in the trust funds set up by the government to keep Social Security solvent.
Gracias' work in government while running his asset management firm sparked conflict of interest accusations from the president of the American Federation of Teachers, Randi Weingarten. The official annoucement of his resignation comes the same week as Weingarten sent letters to the managers of nine public pension funds for which Valor was managing nearly $2 billion in assets. Weingarten told NBC News the letters were sent so the managers might "question if the risks of Valor now outweigh the gains."
"Pension fund fiduciaries have a duty to ensure the integrity of their investments," Weingarten said in an interview. "And it is concerning to us that Valor employees appear to be engaged in alternative pursuits unrelated to the management of their core business."
Weingarten has requested information from the pension fund managers on if the $1.8 billion they had collectively invested with Valor had seen a decrease in value during Gracias' time with DOGE.
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