Donald Trump Jr. is expected to ring the New York Stock Exchange bell for online gun retailer GrabAGun, which is set to go public in June.
Ahead of the initial public offer (IPO), the president's son will be joined by anti-woke investor Omeed Malik and GrabAGun CEO Marc Nemati for a lunch and private dinner in Midtown Manhattan next week with hedge fund managers, the New York Post reported.
Trump Jr., an avid hunter and Second Amendment activist, is expected to join GrabAGun's board when the company goes public with the playful stock ticker "PEW."
It's part of an effort to establish conservative businesses that have long been sidelined by "woke" investors. Trump Jr. is also a partner at Mailk's conservative venture capital firm 1789 Capital.
“The gun space has been one of the spaces most attacked by woke corporate America,” Trump told The New York Post in January. "People are more concerned for their security than ever.”
“It shows our business model — we are giving a company that has been ostracized bandwidth to operate,” Trump said.
Trump Jr. previously partnered with Malik to set up Public Square, which bills itself as "America’s largest marketplace and payments ecosystem for consumers and businesses that value life, family, and liberty."
In a similar vein, GrabAGun aims to support the Second Amendment by making it easy to purchase guns and ammo "just like you can on Amazon," Malik said in a recent appearance at the Qatar Economic Forum.
"That’s an entire area that’s been starved of funding in the United States for ideological purposes,” Malik added.
GrabAGun aims to fills a gap in the retail firearms market, which has long been driven by in-store sales even as more Americans, particularly young people, are buying stuff online.
"We no longer shop the way we used to, and the retail firearms market needed a change. We believe people should be able to use their computers, phones, and tablets to shop for firearms the same way they purchase everything else," the company's site says.
GrabAGun will be acquired by Malik's special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), Colombier Acquisition Corp II, which will take the gun retailer public.
Firearms companies have long had a small presence in the stock market - only two famous manufacturers, Smith & Wesson and Ruger, are publicly traded.
When GrabAGun goes public next month, Trump Jr. will have the honor of ringing the ceremonial bell on Wall Street.
