Stephen Feinberg does not appear in photographs. The 66-year-old private equity magnate who now wields sweeping authority over Pentagon procurement and military contracting has released exactly one image of himself since taking office in March 2025, and it was a cartoon animation.
Feinberg serves as deputy undersecretary of defense, a title that sounds bureaucratic and modest. In practice, he controls vast portions of the military's $820 billion budget and has fundamentally reshaped how the Department of Defense hands out contracts and makes capital investments. His boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, maintains a high public profile with frequent social media posts and appearances at military events. Feinberg has given no interviews, held no press conferences, and has not testified before Congress since his confirmation hearing.
According to ten sources across Capitol Hill, the Pentagon, and the defense contracting sector, Feinberg has eclipsed Hegseth in actual operational influence. "Everything is centered around Feinberg," one veteran Pentagon bureaucrat said. "I don't think there's anything that goes on that he doesn't have a stake in," according to a financier familiar with his operations at the department.
Before joining government, Feinberg founded and ran Cerberus Capital Management, one of the world's largest private equity firms, for 34 years. He publicly committed to divesting his stake in Cerberus and certified in March 2025 that he had done so. Yet dozens of companies linked to Cerberus have won Pentagon contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and Feinberg has seeded the Defense Department with a core group of his former executives.
George Kollitides, a senior Cerberus alumnus, now serves as a special government employee overseeing the Pentagon's newly created Economic Defense Unit while maintaining private sector employment. Tomas Rakusan, formerly a CIA case officer who worked for Cerberus, holds the title of senior adviser to Feinberg. David Lorch, a Cerberus managing director, runs a multibillion-dollar office focused on critical minerals and strategic industries. John Gallagher, also from Cerberus, joined as a senior adviser to Feinberg.
"In his mind the most qualified people are the people who have been working for him for 10 years," one Pentagon official told reporters. "Their whole thing is shaking up the way government works."
Kollitides serves on the board of D Boral Acquisition I, a blank-check company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands that launched a fundraising effort for a quarter billion dollars in February. The firm was backed by Boral Capital, a boutique investment vehicle that has underwritten ventures tied to the Trump family, including Trump Media and Technology Group. Kevin McGurn, who served as an adviser to Trump Media at the time and now serves as interim CEO, also sits on the board.
The Economic Defense Unit that Kollitides oversees is tasked with spending billions in Pentagon funds not as traditional contracts but as equity investments and loans into companies deemed strategically important. The Pentagon has already deployed substantial capital in this manner. A $620 million loan went to Vulcan Elements, which is partially owned by Donald Trump Jr. The Department of Defense invested $15 million into Kopin Corp, a display company associated with Unusual Machines, also partially owned by Trump Jr. In January, the Pentagon committed $1 billion in preferred shares to L3Harris to form a new company that will manufacture solid rocket motors, though the precise ownership structure remains unclear.
Senator Elizabeth Warren has raised alarms about what she views as inherent conflicts of interest. She wrote to Feinberg in April that the award of contracts to Cerberus-linked companies raises serious concerns, particularly regarding firms that received contracts related to the Golden Dome missile defense system. In an earlier letter from February, Warren questioned whether Feinberg's background as a private equity executive equipped him with the necessary experience to execute the scale of reforms required at the Defense Department.
The Pentagon's official response is dismissive of conflict concerns. Sean Parnell, a Pentagon spokesperson, stated that Feinberg "is a man of integrity who has conducted himself ethically throughout his entire career" and that the department maintains "a rigorous, multi-layered ethics framework." A Cerberus spokesperson confirmed that Feinberg divested his stake and is not involved in the operations of Cerberus or its portfolio companies.
Defense analysts and Pentagon insiders paint a different picture. A retired military officer working with the Pentagon observed that the concentration of influence in the hands of one company's core team is unprecedented. "There have been revolving doors before. Frequently," he said. "But we haven't ever had a concentration like this in the hands of one company. This is different. It's one organization's core team." Another former Pentagon official noted that conflicts of interest scrutiny would have been consequential in previous administrations but has become routine in the current one.
Feinberg's ascent represents a fundamental shift in how military procurement operates. Stripped of old rules and oversight mechanisms, the Pentagon under his direction now functions more like a private equity operation than a government agency. Companies in which his associates retain interests win contracts. Billions flow to ventures connected to his former firm. The line between the public interest and private capital accumulation has become almost invisible.
Author James Rodriguez: "A shadow deputy secretary operating beyond public view while his network captures Pentagon dollars is the kind of structural conflict that should alarm anyone who cares about how government actually works."
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