American Summer at Citywealth: Washington DC, where wealth, power and technology meet
Byline: Karen Jones, founder of Citywealth, has more than 20 years’ experience in global private wealth.
The US capital has always been shaped by proximity to government. Under Donald Trump, Washington’s power over technology, trade and capital has become even more visible, just as a new generation of crypto, AI and defence entrepreneurs moves closer to the machinery of the state.
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Washington DC is not simply the home of the White House, Congress and the Supreme Court. It is also a place where government spending, regulation and procurement have created fortunes. The older Washington wealth model was built around government services, defence, systems integration, law, lobbying and contracting. Billionaire fortunes including those of the Rales family and David Rubenstein grew in and around this wider Washington ecosystem.
That model has not disappeared. What is changing is the technology. Artificial intelligence, digital assets, quantum computing and venture backed defence are bringing founders and investors into much closer contact with Washington. President Trump has also made the seat of power more prominent. His administration has embraced significant parts of the US technology sector while pursuing a much tougher approach in some areas of international trade.
Canada is an immediate example. New US tariffs of 50% on around $20 billion of Canadian imports took effect in August after negotiations failed. Canada responded with retaliatory tariffs on a similar value of US goods, due to take effect on 8 September.
The contrast is striking. Washington is taking a more confrontational approach in parts of its external economic policy while making technology increasingly central to domestic industrial, regulatory and national security policy.
Understanding Washington becomes part of doing business
The entrepreneurs moving through Washington are doing so against an extraordinarily wealthy national backdrop. KPMG calculates that US household net worth reached a record $181 trillion at the end of 2025 and increased again to $183 trillion in the first quarter of 2026. The latter rise came despite a $1 trillion fall in financial assets caused by stock market shocks with the Iran war.
For Washington, the important question is how much of that wealth increasingly sits in sectors where government policy, regulation or procurement is commercially significant.
Jamison Sites, a principal in the KPMG Business Tax Services practice who focuses on serving clients with digital assets exposure, commented: “Washington’s UHNW ecosystem is evolving as a new generation of founders and investors in areas such as digital assets, AI and venture-backed defense technology become more engaged with the policy environment surrounding their businesses. What we’re seeing isn’t primarily an effort to influence policy, but rather a desire to better understand how policy is developed, how regulatory decisions are made, and where opportunities exist to engage constructively in the process. For many entrepreneurs, familiarity with Washington has become a business competency alongside capital raising, talent strategy and growth planning.”
“At the same time, federal agencies, congressional staff and policymakers are increasingly receptive to hearing directly from business owners and investors about the practical implications of proposed rules and legislation. That has created more interaction between the private sector and Washington’s decision-makers, particularly after a period when many participants in sectors like digital assets viewed the regulatory environment as uncertain. As a result, we’re seeing greater interest from UHNW clients in education, relationship-building and policy awareness, reflecting a recognition that understanding Washington is becoming increasingly important to long-term business and investment decisions.”
Sahel A. Assar, Shareholder, Tax, Chair, Blockchain and Digital Asset Practice Group at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney PC and Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center, sees a broader transition underway: “The Nation’s Capital ultra-high net worth (UHNW) landscape is shifting from a city defined by legacy government-services wealth: the systems integrators and Beltway contractors of previous generations, to one increasingly populated by founders and investors from AI, crypto and venture-backed defense tech, many of whom have direct commercial reasons to stay close to policymakers.”
“Where the older model of Washington, DC wealth was about servicing government contracts quietly, the new generation is more visible and more assertive: they’re visible to help shape the rules that will govern their industries, particularly in the context of digital assets, where the retreat from the more aggressive enforcement posture seen under the previous Securities and Exchange Commission leadership has opened space for founders to engage regulators directly rather than through litigation. The emergence of new members’ clubs in Georgetown, reportedly charging membership fees in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, with backers and early members drawn from digital assets, AI and venture circles, is genuinely a new approach as compared to an otherwise formalized and discreet venue thriving in traditional think-tank and lobbying infrastructure Washington has relied on for decades.”
“For wealth advisors, this is producing clients who think about political and regulatory risk as core to wealth strategy, not a peripheral concern, structuring around policy exposure the way they’d structure around market risk. We’re also seeing this play out in how tech wealth coincides with legacy Washington, DC institutions more broadly, including media ownership, where founders with fast-built fortunes are taking a more active and public hand in shaping the platforms and narratives around policy debates that affect their own interests. On the litigation side, more disputes are touching personal and business assets for founders who built wealth quickly in AI, crypto or defense-tech and are now navigating succession, family office structuring and reputational exposure they didn’t anticipate needing to manage at this stage of their careers.”
“Against this background, UHNW mobility is making the Washington, DC private client market considerably more international and fluid. Wealthy families increasingly have residences, investments, businesses and family members across multiple U.S. states and jurisdictions. New private networks and member clubs are reflecting a broader convergence of political, entrepreneurial and investment communities that historically operate in more distinct circles.”
“For UHNW individuals and families in Washington, D.C, the increasing availability of wealth, technology, politics and regulation makes coordinated advice particularly important. Families should periodically examine not only where they are resident for tax purposes and where their assets are located, but also how their businesses, investments, trusts and succession plans may be affected by changing federal and state tax rules, regulatory developments and greater geographic mobility. For internationally connected families, that review should extend across jurisdictions and generations, particularly where family members, businesses or assets have moved beyond the United States.”
“The most valuable, trusted adviser is increasingly not simply a tax lawyer, accountant, investment manager or estate planner operating within a particular silo, but a professional who understands the family’s broader objectives and can anticipate where tax, legal, regulatory, investment and reputational considerations converge. In Washington D.C., especially, where private wealth sits alongside political influence, emerging technology and rapidly changing regulation, the ability to coordinate those disciplines, and to identify an issue before it becomes a dispute or a public concern, can be as important as the technical underlying advice itself.”
Her description is important because it links the older contractor economy with something newer. Technology fortunes are not replacing Washington’s traditional sources of wealth. They are being layered on top of them.
From supercomputers to quantum
IBM provides a useful historical thread. The company has worked with the US government for generations, and Washington and Northern Virginia have long supported communities of programmers and engineers working on large government computing projects. The physical machines may sit elsewhere, but design, software, systems integration and government programme work have long clustered around the capital.
Now their frontier is quantum. IBM announced in June that it would invest more than $10 billion over five years in quantum computing, covering research, manufacturing, acquisitions and the wider ecosystem. The company is aiming to deliver a large scale fault tolerant quantum computer in 2029. A month earlier IBM and the US Department of Commerce announced plans for Anderon, described as America’s first purpose built pure play quantum foundry. A proposed $1 billion CHIPS award would support the development of advanced quantum chip manufacturing in the US.
The attraction goes far beyond faster computers. Quantum systems could eventually tackle problems in chemistry, new materials, medicines, logistics and optimisation that defeat conventional machines. There is also a strategic contest with China. Washington increasingly treats quantum alongside AI and advanced semiconductors as a national security technology, with potential applications in sensing, communications, materials and scientific research. One consequence is the need to update some forms of public key cryptography before sufficiently powerful quantum machines arrive. Washington is investing in the technology while also preparing federal systems for the security changes it may eventually require.
The bigger wealth story is what happens if quantum moves successfully from research into commercial use. IBM is not the only contender, but its government relationships, manufacturing programme and multibillion dollar commitment give it a prominent position in a technology that could create significant new commercial value.
Crypto comes in from the cold
Crypto shows even more clearly how quickly Washington can change an industry’s environment. Dion Seymour, Crypto Tax & Accounting Technical Director at Andersen LLP, London commented: “Washington’s UHNW market is increasingly being shaped by founders whose businesses depend on US policy. The growth of AI in particular, crypto, and venture-backed defence is bringing a new generation of entrepreneurs and investors, in which regulation, government procurement, and national security are increasingly seen as strategic considerations.”
“Crypto is a particularly clear example. Under Gary Gensler, there was significant fear of a regulatory-enforcement approach, with businesses often uncertain where the regulatory lines actually sat. The environment has changed significantly, not least at the SEC, which has established a Crypto Task Force. The US is now pursuing clearer rules and, more recently, has included exemptions in CLARITY designed to facilitate innovation. The launch of the Trump memecoin is perhaps the most striking illustration of how quickly the political and regulatory environment around crypto has shifted.”
“I would expect that these changes are attracting wealth and influence to the US, with Washington also benefiting. Founders and investors increasingly need to understand not just the technology but the policy environment surrounding it. Perhaps influence in Washington has never been more important with the need to create closer connections between entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers and advisers.”
The Trump memecoin is particularly Washingtonian: a digital asset carrying the name and image of a sitting president at a time when his administration is seeking to make the US more hospitable to digital assets. It has also become financially significant. Trump’s 2026 federal financial disclosure showed nearly $1.2 billion of income from his crypto businesses during 2025, according to an Associated Press analysis. Crypto has also become a family business. Donald Trump Jr, Eric Trump and Barron Trump are among the cofounders of blockchain savvy company World Liberty Financial.
The significance for Washington is less the precise value of any particular token than the change in atmosphere. A sector that was recently fighting enforcement actions is now engaging with an administration that has made digital assets a much more visible part of economic policy and wealth creation.
Washington tries sport as an economic engine
Sport provides a much more physical expression of the relationship between private capital, power and place. On 2 September, a non profit set up to market the state, ‘Destination DC’ announced that sport would become a bigger part of its tourism strategy after Washington welcomed a record 27.2 million visitors in 2025. Those visitors generated $11.9 billion in spending and $2.4 billion in tax revenue, supporting 114,013 jobs.
The centrepiece of Washington’s longer-term sports strategy is the return of the Washington Commanders, American football team (NFL) to the former RFK Stadium site. The team played at RFK between 1961 and 1996 before moving to Maryland. Its planned new home is a roughly 65,000 seat enclosed stadium at the centre of a 180 acre redevelopment intended to include housing, hospitality, retail, recreation and public space. Echoing the developments from Bob Kraft in Boston and FIFA expansion.
The private capital behind it is notable. Josh Harris, a private equity billionaire who owns other major sports teams in the USA, leads the Commanders ownership group. The partners include Mitchell Rales, Magic Johnson, David Blitzer, Mark Ein and former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. Schmidt makes an especially useful connection between Washington’s technology and sporting economies. He was born in Falls Church, Virginia and went to Yorktown High School in Arlington before studying at Princeton and Berkeley. The owner group is therefore not simply a collection of sports investors. It draws together private equity, technology, industrial wealth and longstanding local networks.
Art, history and wealth
Washington also holds wealth of a different kind. The Smithsonian museums contain some of the deepest collections of American historical material in the world, while the National Gallery of Art holds the largest public collection of work by Mark Rothko. The scale of Washington DC’s public collections is difficult to overstate. The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo, and holds 157.6 million objects and specimens. Eleven of its museums line the National Mall, placing some of America’s greatest historical, scientific and cultural collections within walking distance of the White House and Capitol.
Private wealth sits alongside those national collections. Mitchell Rales, medical billionaire of Danaher Corporation, already encountered as a minority owner of the Washington Commanders, is also one of America’s leading collectors. He and his wife Emily founded Glenstone, a private contemporary art museum in Potomac, Maryland,, bringing together an extensive collection of postwar and contemporary art with architecture and landscape. The National Gallery, a great momument and treasure of Washington DC, describes Rales as one of its leading benefactors and a trustee of more than two decades. In April, the Mitchell P. Rales Family Foundation gave $116 million to the National Gallery to endow its Across the Nation lending programme. It was the largest gift to endow programming in the gallery’s history. The initiative sends masterpieces from the national collection on long-term loan to small and mid-size regional museums across the U.S.
That creates a useful Washington connection: industrial wealth, an NFL franchise, private collecting and national cultural philanthropy sitting within the same individual.
Collections of that scale also show why art can become a serious private client asset. The 2025 Art Basel and UBS Survey of Global Collecting surveyed 3,100 HNW collectors in ten markets and found that respondents allocated an average 20% of their wealth to art, rising to 28% among those with more than $50 million in assets. Around 80% said they intended eventually to pass their collections to children or spouses. Those figures relate specifically to active wealthy collectors, not the HNW population generally, but they show the scale that art can reach inside a collector’s estate.
Washington art lawyer Rich Louis says due diligence remains central particularly with the global trend of UHNW mobility: “My comment is to emphasize the importance of due diligence when buying or selling alternative assets. This area of law continues to evolve. Some alternative assets, like musical instruments, are made from endangered species and are restricted on how they can be transported. Buying any UHNW collectibles, like a painting, can present a minefield of issues if proper provenance is not established. I wrote about a New York case where someone bought a painting created by the WPA (Works Progress Administration – a Federal organisation) during the Great Depression and had it seized when they tried to sell it because they could not establish that the government actually consented to its sale.”
“Similarly, the New York District Attorney’s Office seized a painting it contended was stolen during the Holocaust because the current owner could not establish an unbroken chain of title 80 years after the painting was created. While it might be true that establishing an unbroken chain of title with 100% certainty is impossible, buyers need to be aware of what risks they are taking, have that reflected in the price, and attempt to negotiate a sharing of that risk with the seller. It is always best to consult a licensed professional in the jurisdiction where you live before making any major purchases.”
The issue, as mentioned, is particularly relevant to internationally mobile families. Paintings, musical instruments and other collectible assets can cross borders with their owners, but rules covering provenance, endangered materials, export and import controls do not necessarily travel with them. The UK, since Brexit, has also tightened its policies on this.
Bezos and the problem of high profile assets
Jeff Bezos provides another Washington case study. Bezos bought The Washington Post for $250 million in 2013. More recently the newspaper has become a highly visible illustration of the reputational consequences that can accompany ownership of an important institution. In 2024 the newspaper, for the first time, it decided not to endorse a candidate in the presidential election, a decision Bezos later defended publicly. In 2025 he set out a new direction for the opinion section focused on personal liberties and free markets. In February 2026 the organisation implemented substantial staff reductions. Whether those decisions ultimately improve the business is a separate question. For private client advisers, the more interesting issue is that an asset can be financially insignificant relative to an owner’s wider fortune and still carry significant reputational consequences.
Assar puts the issue this way: “”Consider the following example for illustration purposes. A founder acquires or controls a major media or cultural institution alongside a separate commercial enterprise that carries significant regulatory or government-contract exposure. When that founder makes a visible public editorial or governance change to the institution, it tends to be read publicly through the lens of the owner’s other business interests rather than on its own terms and values. The result is reputational exposure that runs on its own timeline, independent of the underlying commercial logic, and one that conventional crisis management tools struggle to contain because it isn’t a factual dispute so much as a question of motive and trust. Trusted advisors are evaluating through this kind of public scrutiny before their clients acquire high-profile assets — building out communications and governance capability alongside the wealth structuring, rather than treating reputation as something to manage reactively.”
The point does not depend on making any assertion about Bezos’s motives. It is a broader private client issue. Sports teams, newspapers, museums and major collections can become public expressions of their owners. In Washington, where regulation and political scrutiny are unusually concentrated, that visibility can carry particular weight.
A different seat of power
Washington has always brought private wealth into contact with the state. IBM engineers working on government systems, Beltway contractors (Interstate 495, the ring road that circles Washington, DC) becoming enormously wealthy and investors building businesses around federal procurement are not new phenomena. What is changing is the type of technology and the speed at which some of the fortunes around it are being created.
The Trump administration has made that relationship more visible. It is backing strategic technologies such as quantum, pursuing a markedly friendlier approach to crypto and making AI and national security technology increasingly central to the domestic economic agenda. At the same time, it is pursuing a harder line in parts of international trade, including the current dispute with Canada. That combination reinforces Washington’s position as more than simply a political capital.
For a new generation of technology founders and investors, decisions taken in Washington can affect regulation, government contracts, access to markets, trade, national security policy and ultimately company valuations. As those have developed and continue to develop, some of the same private fortunes estimated to be c$540bn in Washington, DC, are then flowing into football teams, newspapers, museums, art collections and philanthropy.
Washington DC remains the seat of American political power. In 2026, it is also becoming an increasingly visible meeting point between government and some of the largest pools of private wealth in the country. That includes Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire founder of Facebook, who is reported to own a 15,000-square-foot mansion locally; Barack and Michelle Obama, Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO.
Key Takeaways
- Washington DC is increasingly shaped by technology and wealth, fostering a new ecosystem of entrepreneurs engaged with government policy.
- The rise of AI, digital assets, and quantum computing is bringing founders closer to political power, shifting focus from traditional government services.
- Wealth advisors now integrate political and regulatory risks into their strategies, reflecting the importance of understanding Washington’s evolving landscape.
- Private capital is intertwining with sports, art, and philanthropy, showcasing a blend of wealth and influence within the capital.
- President Trump’s administration has made technology, especially crypto and national security, central to the economic agenda, emphasising the merger of wealth and power in Washington DC.
Karen Jones is the founder of Citywealth and a wealth management commentator with more than 20 years’ experience across global private wealth, family offices and succession. Before founding Citywealth in 2005, she held publishing roles at The Times and The Sunday Times, London; Legal Business magazine and worked on the Asia Pacific Legal 500.
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