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The Cap Table of the Coup d'État
Sun, Jan 04, 2026
The acquisition is complete. Now comes the restructuring.
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado released a letter yesterday calling Maduro’s capture the hour of the citizens. She framed the US intervention as a means to an end: the restoration of democracy. But hours later, President Trump corrected the thesis. "We're going to run the country," he declared.
Machado thought she was getting a liberation. She got a management change.
The reality is that Venezuela is not being treated as a sovereign nation in crisis, but as a distressed asset with the world's largest proven oil reserves. And a look at the capitalization table of the current US administration suggests the new management has very specific plans for that inventory.
Seven of the top ten donors in the 2024 election backed Donald Trump. They didn't buy a candidate. They bought a business plan.
Elon Musk runs an empire of combustion. SpaceX rockets drink methane and kerosene; xAI’s illegal Memphis turbines burn gas. The Gigafactories run on an electrical grid that is 64% fossil fuel. He needs cheap energy to reach Mars. Now, the administration he financed controls the spigot.
Neocolonialism doesn't need to plant a flag. It just needs to secure the supply chain. Trump was clear in his previous remarks: "When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. But now we're buying oil from Venezuela, so we're making a dictator very rich."
That error has been corrected. The dictator is gone. The dividends are pending.
The market metabolized the regime change with the cold speed of a C-17. Headlines have already shifted from the extraction of a dictator to the logistics of running a vassal state. Washington’s new policy will center on oil production, and a delegation of US investors will visit Venezuela in March. Some vultures fly first class.
The shroud of democracy is slipping off the map. World leaders are no longer playing diplomacy. They are playing Risk. China condemned the operation not because they love Maduro, but because they are staring at a $100 billion write-down on loans, infrastructure, and future contracts that are now effectively void. Brazil is moving troops to the border not to fight, but to contain the fallout.
The hour of the citizens has passed. The board meeting has begun.
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By The Hold ReportSun, Jan 04, 2026
The acquisition is complete. Now comes the restructuring.
Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel laureate María Corina Machado released a letter yesterday calling Maduro’s capture the hour of the citizens. She framed the US intervention as a means to an end: the restoration of democracy. But hours later, President Trump corrected the thesis. "We're going to run the country," he declared.
Machado thought she was getting a liberation. She got a management change.
The reality is that Venezuela is not being treated as a sovereign nation in crisis, but as a distressed asset with the world's largest proven oil reserves. And a look at the capitalization table of the current US administration suggests the new management has very specific plans for that inventory.
Seven of the top ten donors in the 2024 election backed Donald Trump. They didn't buy a candidate. They bought a business plan.
Elon Musk runs an empire of combustion. SpaceX rockets drink methane and kerosene; xAI’s illegal Memphis turbines burn gas. The Gigafactories run on an electrical grid that is 64% fossil fuel. He needs cheap energy to reach Mars. Now, the administration he financed controls the spigot.
Neocolonialism doesn't need to plant a flag. It just needs to secure the supply chain. Trump was clear in his previous remarks: "When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over. But now we're buying oil from Venezuela, so we're making a dictator very rich."
That error has been corrected. The dictator is gone. The dividends are pending.
The market metabolized the regime change with the cold speed of a C-17. Headlines have already shifted from the extraction of a dictator to the logistics of running a vassal state. Washington’s new policy will center on oil production, and a delegation of US investors will visit Venezuela in March. Some vultures fly first class.
The shroud of democracy is slipping off the map. World leaders are no longer playing diplomacy. They are playing Risk. China condemned the operation not because they love Maduro, but because they are staring at a $100 billion write-down on loans, infrastructure, and future contracts that are now effectively void. Brazil is moving troops to the border not to fight, but to contain the fallout.
The hour of the citizens has passed. The board meeting has begun.