Shortly before Trump’s aggression on Caracas, Paul Singer’s investment firm bought Citgo at deep discount in a U.S.-based auction overseen by an AIPAC board member.
Paul Singer during a 2013 session of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. (World Economic Forum/Flickr/CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By Stephen Prager
Common Dreams
One of President Donald Trump’s top billionaire donors, who has spent the past several months backing a push for regime change in Venezuela, is about to cash in after the president’s kidnapping of the nation’s president, Nicolas Maduro, this weekend.
While he declined to tell members of Congress, Trump has said he tipped off oil executives before the illegal attack. At a press conference following the attack, he said the U.S. would have “our very large United States oil companies” go into Venezuela, which he said the U.S. will “run” indefinitely, and “start making money” for the United States.
As Judd Legum reported on Monday for Popular Information, among the biggest beneficiaries will be the billionaire investor Paul Singer:
“In 2024, Singer, an 81-year-old with a net worth of $6.7 billion, donated $5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., Trump’s Super PAC. Singer donated tens of millions more in the 2024 cycle to support Trump’s allies, including $37 million to support the election of Republicans to Congress. He also donated an undisclosed amount to fund Trump’s second transition.”
Singer is also a major pro-Israel donor, with his foundation having donated more than $3.3 million to groups like the Birthright Israel Foundation, the Israel America Academic Exchange, Boundless Israel, and others in 2021, according to tax filings.
In November 2025, less than two months before Trump’s operation to take over Venezuela, Singer’s investment firm, Elliott Investment Management, inked a highly fortuitous deal.
Discounted Purchase of Citgo
It purchased Citgo, the U.S.-based subsidiary of Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, for $5.9 billion — a sale that was forced by a Delaware court after Venezuela defaulted on its bond payments.
The court-appointed special master who forced the sale, Robert Pincus, is a member of the board of directors for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Elliott Management hailed the court order requiring the sale in a press release, saying it was “backed by a group of strategic U.S. energy investors.”
Singer acquired the Citgo’s three massive coastal refineries, 43 oil terminals and more than 4,000 gas stations at a “major discount” because of its distressed status. Advisers to the court overseeing the sale estimated its value at $11-13 billion, while the Venezuelan government estimated it at $18 billion.
As Legum explained, the Trump administration’s embargo on Venezuelan oil imports to the United States bore the primary responsibility for the company’s plummeting value:
“Citgo’s refiners are purpose-built to process heavy-grade Venezuelan ‘sour’ crude. As a result, Citgo was forced to source oil from more expensive sources in Canada and Colombia. (Oil produced in the United States is generally light-grade.) This made Citgo’s operations far less profitable.”
It is the preferred modus operandi for Singer, whose hedge fund is often described as a “vulture” capital group. As Francesca Fiorentini, a commentator at Zeteo, explained, Singer
“is famous for doing things like buying the debt of struggling countries like Argentina for pennies on the dollar and then forcing that country to repay him with interest plus legal fees.”
The hedge fund manager & GOP megadonor Paul Singer’s shady purchase of CITGO has everything to do with this coup. Thanks to @JuddLegum for his reporting on this! pic.twitter.com/qsZh34tLZS
— Francesca Fiorentini (@franifio) January 5, 2026
Venezuelan Vice President and Minister of Petroleum Delcy Rodríguez called the sale of Citgo to Singer “fraudulent” and “forced” in December.
After the U.S. abducted Maduro this month, Trump named Rodriguez as Venezuela’s interim president — and she was formally sworn in Monday — but he warned that she’ll pay a “very big price” if she refuses to do “what we want.”
That is good news for Singer, who is expected to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of an oil industry controlled by U.S. corporations, which will likely not be subject to crippling sanctions.
Singer has reportedly met with Trump directly at least four times since he was first elected in 2016, most recently in 2024. While it is unknown whether the two discussed Venezuela during those meetings, groups funded by Singer have pushed aggressively for Trump to take maximal action to decapitate the country’s leadership.
Financial Attack Dog
Since 2011, Singer has donated over $10 million and continues to sit on the board of directors for the right-wing Manhattan Institute think tank, which in recent months has consistently advocated for Maduro to be removed from power. In October, it published an article praising Trump for his “consistent policies against Venezuela’s Maduro.”
He has also been a major donor to the neoconservative think tank Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), serving as its second-largest contributor from 2008-2011, with more than $3.6 million.
In late November, shortly before Trump announced that the U.S. had closed Venezuelan airspace and began to impound Venezuelan oil tankers, FDD published a policy brief stating that the U.S. has “capabilities to launch an overwhelming air and missile campaign against the Maduro regime” that it could use to remove him from power.
Singer himself has acted as a financial attack dog for Trump during his first year back in office. In June, he contributed $1 million to fund a super PAC aiming to oust Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who’d become Trump’s leading Republican critic over his Department of Justice’s refusal to release its files pertaining to the billionaire sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
The biggest problem isn’t they’re missing the deadlines, it’s what they’re redacting.
They’re citing the Privacy Act, and pretending it overrides a law we just passed. They also say they don’t have to release internal deliberations, but our bill specifically says they must. pic.twitter.com/Y6lqR51n5i
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 8, 2026
A super PAC tied to Miriam Adelson, another top pro-Israel donor who recently said she’d give Trump $250 million if he ran for a third term, also reportedly helped to fund the campaign against Massie.
Massie has since gone on to be one of the most vocal opponents in Congress to Trump’s regime-change push in Venezuela, joining Democrats to co-sponsor multiple failed war powers resolutions that would have reined in the president’s ability to launch military strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and launch an attack on mainland Venezuela.
As the Trump administration has asserted that American corporations are entitled to the oil controlled by Venezuela’s state firm, Massie rebutted this weekend that: “It’s not American oil. It’s Venezuelan oil.”
“Oil companies entered into risky deals to develop oil, and the deals were canceled by a prior Venezuelan government,” he said. “What’s happening: Lives of U.S. soldiers are being risked to make those oil companies (not Americans) more profitable.”
Massie said that Singer,
“who’s already spent $1,000,000 to defeat me in the next election, stands to make billions of dollars on his distressed Citgo investment, now that this administration has taken over Venezuela.”
Fiorentini added that “Paul Singer’s shady purchase of Citgo has everything to do with this coup.”
Stephen Prager is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
The views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Vultures do not kill their prey. It’s the Bald Eagle who kills, pirates and steals it’s prey. Vulture Capitalist is another capitalist incorrect choice of words.
Nice picking out bones .
Robber barrons , Philantropists , Golden ballrooms , Circus acts .
Built with their own hands .
Venture Capitalist, i. e. vulture capitalist VS true predator – they are snakes, cold blooded killers of the highest order. They kill by squeezing the life out of their prey and swallow them whole.
Sinclair is one of the worst!
I want to correct the statement that VP Delcy Rodriguez was placed by Trump as President which is totally incorrect. The transfer of power to President from former VP Delcy Rodriguez is inscribed in the Venezuelan Constitution and under International law no foreign goverment can institute a Head of State (overtly).
These zionists are everywhere. AIPAC runs the US and have installed the zionist Bari Weiss at the top of CBS news.
Shameful.
“The Vulture Capitalist Poised for a Venezuelan Killing”
I must admit to a certain unease at the figurative use of the word ‘vulture’.
Vultures do a great job at cleaning up dead animals and helping to protect us from disease.
They have been devastated in India due to the use of veterinary drugs in cattle which cause them kidney failure. This has led to an increase in disease:
“Without vultures, a large number of animal carcasses were left to rot, posing a serious risk to human health by contaminating water supply and providing a potential breeding ground for infectious germs and proliferation of pests such as rats.
The loss of vultures also resulted in a substantial increase in the population of feral dogs, whose bites are the most common cause of human rabies. The feral dog population in India increased by least 5 million, resulting in over 38 million additional dog bites and more than 47,000 extra deaths from rabies, costing $34 billion in economic impact. On average, it was estimated that human mortality rates increased by more than 4% during the period of 2000 to 2005, when vulture population reached the lowest levels.”
(Wikipedia)
Specifically it was diclofenac used to manage pain and inflammation in cattle, which was toxic to the vultures that fed on the dead cows.
Another consequence was that the Parsi Zoroastrians who relied on the vultures to consume their dead, ended up with mounting piles of corpses atop their towers.
I’m trying to think of a good attention-getting rallying slogan: “I charge Citgo with receiving stolen property!” May or may not get off the ground but I’m just starting.
Be careful Singer doesn’t proudly steal your slogan!
Even worse than I thought. I have heard about this vulture for many years and this is typical of his work. The “values” of the USA/Israel seep into every action affecting real human beings in the world when obscenely rich men like Singer are allowed to act without restraint.
Sounds like Singer was paying attention when Musk tweeted, “We will coup whoever we want! Deal with it.”
Billionaires don’t give donations. They make investments.
Very astute comment. BIG difference between the two.
THEFT: The U.S., hegemonically and arbitrarily determines what international law is “in deed”.
For clarification of hypocrisy writ large; a question posed to Googles AI: By what right under the jurisdiction of international law did the United States have to confiscate the Citgo Petroleum Corporation from Venezuela?
[The U.S. claims jurisdiction to potentially force the sale of Citgo not through direct confiscation, but by allowing creditors (like miners Crystallex) to seize its shares to satisfy Venezuelan debts, citing exceptions to sovereign immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) for property rights taken in violation of international law, essentially treating Citgo shares as collateral for Venezuela’s defaulted bonds and arbitration awards, though the process faces ongoing legal challenges, sanctions, and requires Treasury licenses for enforcement.
International Law Context:
Not a Direct “Confiscation”: The U.S. government isn’t seizing Citgo; it’s facilitating U.S. court-ordered enforcement of private debt judgments against Venezuela, a sovereign state, by allowing attachment and sale of its U.S. assets.
Violation of International Law (Venezuela’s View): Venezuela argues this violates international law, including principles of sovereign immunity and preventing indirect expropriation without compensation, as it targets a key state asset to satisfy unrelated debts, according to news reports.
In essence, U.S. courts are applying U.S. law (FSIA) to allow creditors to seize a Venezuelan state asset (Citgo) to settle debts, a process Venezuela protests as an unlawful infringement on its sovereign property.]
By what sovereign, independent nation-state right does Venezuela, or any other state; that does not strictly adhere to U.S. foreign policy directives have to lawfully contest, at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – [the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, which settles legal disputes between states and gives advisory opinions on international law, acting as the “World Court” in The Hague] – anything the U.S. demands of it?
Now the rogue U.S. regime has gone as far, unilaterally and unprecedentedly, as kidnapping Venezuela’s President (Maduro) on concocted, fraudulent pretexts, under U.S. “jurisimpudence”, proven beyond doubt “inclined to take liberties.”