# Watchdog or Partisan? PESP Targets The Trump Administration

Published: 2025-09-24

[The Point](/the-point/)

September 24, 2025

Highlights:

- The Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) claims to be a nonpartisan, nonprofit watchdog group, yet a recent piece attacking the Trump administration demonstrates its true partisan nature.

- PESP criticizes the Trump administration’s appointment of a private equity firm founder as Deputy Secretary of War, calling it “dangerous.”

- Yet PESP issued no such warnings when the former President Joe Biden appointed PE executives to as his top two national security cabinet officials: Lloyd Austin as Secretary of Defense and Tony Blinken as Secretary of State – both of whom were at the time partners in Pine Island Capital, a PE firm seeking to invest in defense contractors.

The Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP) claims to be a “nonprofit watchdog” that exists to hold private equity accountable, but a recent blog post suggests that it holds one standard for political opponents and another for allies.

Earlier this month, PESP [published a piece harshly criticizing](https://pestakeholder.org/media_coverage/medpage-today-pesp-raises-concerns-over-pentagon-officials-pe-ties/) President Trump’s Deputy Secretary of War, Steve Feinberg, founder of private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management. In the piece, PESP warns that Feinberg’s career in private equity industry presented threats involving privatization military healthcare.

PESP concludes that Feinberg’s appointment “underscore[s] the dangers of entrusting critical public systems – from civilian hospitals to military healthcare – to executives with deep private equity ties.”

One might wonder, then, if PESP issued similar warnings when former President Joe Biden appointed individuals with “deep private equity ties” to top cabinet positions in his administration. Of course this “nonprofit watchdog” did not.

In fact, Biden’s top two national security appointees – Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Tony Blinken – were actually partners at Pine Island Capital Partners, a private equity firm that sought to purchase military contractors, at the time of their appointment. Reporting at the time from [The New York Times](https://archive.is/AVXGr#selection-749.204-753.111) indicated that they were involved with the firm “because of their connections, the company made clear as it promoted itself in recent months in advance of selling $218 million in stock to prepare to buy other defense industry targets.”

A review of PESP’s website for the terms “[Blinken](https://pestakeholder.org/?s=blinken)” and “[Lloyd Austin](https://pestakeholder.org/?s=%22lloyd+austin%22)” yields zero results, as did a search on its [X](https://x.com/search?q=(blinken%20OR%20flournoy%20OR%20austin)%20(from%3APEstakeholder)&src=typed_query&f=live) account. Further, in recent months, PESP’s credibility taken some hits. This past August, a [Washington Examiner](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/3492496/opeiu-pesp-business-watchdog-union-lobbying/) investigation found that the nonprofit engaged in a transactional relationship with the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), wherein the labor union paid PESP to produce organizing and advocacy materials  that failed to include any disclosure of a financial transaction.