Analysis | November 20, 2025
The French aristocrat Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the man responsible for reviving the Olympic Games in 1894, dreamed of using sport as a platform to unite the world in peace and friendship.
Donald Trump Jr., a partner in the 1789 Capital investment group backing the Enhanced Games, released this statement on the games:
“The Enhanced Games represent the future – real competition, real freedom, and real records being smashed. This is about excellence, innovation, and American dominance on the world stage – something the MAGA movement is all about.”
Sports have been weaponized politically since the early days of organized federations, so it shouldn’t be any surprise that moving into the 2026 season, we’re seeing sports at the forefront of widening political tensions in the United States and beyond.
The Enhanced Games, often dubbed the “Steroid Olympics,” is offering $500,000 in prize money for each event, with $250,000 going toward a first-place finish. They are also offering an additional $1 million prize to anybody who breaks the world record in the 100-meter sprint in athletics or the 50-meter freestyle in swimming.
Prize purses of this magnitude don’t come without deep pockets, so it shouldn’t be surprising that some of the richest families on the planet have been connected to the event. Specifically, many of the early investors have been linked to the Trump family and “techno-libertarian” billionaire Peter Thiel.
A War of Ideologies
The Enhanced Games have been harshly criticized by the World Anti-Doping Association (WADA), the International Olympic Committee (IOC), and many major athletic federations. In a joint statement last year, WADA and the IOC stated:
“Promoting performance-enhancing substances and methods sends a dangerous message – especially to current and future generations of athletes … [Performance enhancing drugs] can lead to serious long-term health consequences – even death – and encouraging athletes to use them is utterly irresponsible and immoral. No level of sporting success is worth such a cost.”
The head of the US anti-doping agency (USADA) has gone so far as to call the Enhanced Games a “Dangerous clown show.”
This message seems to be relatively at odds with the mission statement of the Enhanced Games, where they write, “We are on a mission to redefine super humanity through science, innovation and sports.”
One of the event’s founders, who has become the face of the games, Dr. Aron D’Souza, has been a harsh critic of WADA and the IOC, comparing them to the dictatorship in North Korea and saying he can “Free Olympic sport from its shackles” in an interview with The Independent in 2024.
Oddly, in the same interview, D’Souza made a slant comparison between himself and Martin Luther King as well as Karl Marx for “Shredding my reputation for [my ideals].”
D’Souza’s criticisms against the IOC probably shouldn’t be surprising since he’s a self-proclaimed libertarian, and many of the billionaires who have invested in the Enhanched Games have espoused similar anti-government or anti-regulatory views.
Although the Enhance Games are marketing themselves as an event to “Push the boundaries of human performance,” it seems equally as likely that the games are being used to push a political agenda as to advance athletics for the better.
The Founders
The founders of the Enhanced Games officially announced their intention to launch the event in 2023. These founders include Dr. Aron D’Souza, Maximilian Martin, and Christian Angermayer.
D’Souza is a lawyer most famous for leading litigation against Gawker Media in a defamation case involving Hulk Hogan. His role was largely as a proxy for billionaire and investor in the Enhanced Games, Peter Thiel.
Thiel had previously considered suing Gawker Media, a former tabloid, for outing him as gay without his consent. He had considered suing himself, but didn’t want to draw attention to the story. Instead, D’Souza first met Thiel at Oxford University when he was a student and Thiel was visiting to give a talk. They came up with an idea where D’Souza would sue Gawker in a separate case for releasing a sex tape of Hulk Hogan having sex with his friend’s wife, with Thiel pulling the strings and funding the lawsuit.
The case resulted in Gawker filing for bankruptcy after being hit with $140 million in damages.
Martin is listed as the Enhanced Games CEO. He’s a former investment banker at Morgan Stanley who has been involved with several investment groups before working on the Enhanced games project.
The third founder, Christian Angermayer, is a German billionaire investor who also has close ties to Thiel and the Trump family. He’s been involved in joint investments with Thiel, such as the Atai Life Sciences psychedelics company. He brokered the German rights to Donald Trump’s book in 2015.
Angermayer also brokered a $1.1 billion deal between the company Softbank and the Fintech Wirecard. Shortly after the deal, Wirecard collapsed due to accounting fraud related to falsified documents. He also holds a significant stake in the company Northern Data. In 2021, Germany’s market regulator filed a criminal complaint against senior staff at the company for market manipulation.
Enhanced Games Seed Investments
The Enhanced Games announced their seed funding in January 2024, receiving financing from Angermayer’s Aperion Investment Group, Peter Thiel, and Balaji Srinivasan.
Thiel, perhaps best known for being PayPal’s cofounder, has taken an interest in anti-aging technology, signing up to be cryogenically frozen and investing heavily in biotech companies.
Thiel has been involved in several controversies, including alluding to the fact that he thinks Greta Thunberg, among others, could be the “antichrist” in one of his off-the-record lectures in downtown San Fransico. Thiel has expressed distaste for progressive politics and multiculturalism as well as a deep skepticism of democracy.
He has previously donated more than $10 million to J.D. Vance, and the Rolling Stone has described him as Trump’s man in Silicon Valley.
In a 2021 article published in Time, author Max Chagkin said of Thiel, “I think that Peter Thiel is secretly the most important person in Silicon Valley. He’s this behind the scenes player, who is behind so many of the really important things that have happened over the last two decades.”
On Theil’s economic and political philosophy, Changkin called it, “Bordering on fascism … He talks about how companies are better run than governments because they have a single decision maker—a dictator, basically. He is hostile to the idea of democracy.”
Balaji Srinivasan is the co-founder of Counsyl, and has a reputation as a “crypto rockstar.” He has published “The Network State.” That offered a vision for supplanting national government with online, crypto tribes.
1789 Capital Investment and Donald Trump Jr.
In February 2025, 1789 Capital made a multi-million-dollar deal with the Enhanced Games. The group is led by Omeed Malik, Chris Buskirk, and Donald Trump Jr.
Chris Buskirk is the founder of the conservative political advocacy group Rockbridge Network, co-founded by American vice-president J.D. Vance. The Washington Post named the group “One of the most influential forces in GOP politics,” and it’s been credited with launching Vance into power.
Buskirk is also the founder of the Center for American Greatness, which bills itself as “The leading voice of the next generation of American Conservatism.”
Reuters has called him the “Once-struggling Arizona businessman who became a confidant of conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel and Vice President JD Vance.”
Omeed Malik is the founder and CEO of Farvahar Partners. He’s previously been a prominent donor to the Donald Trump campaign.
Donald Trump Jr.’s involvement in 1789 Capital, which holds over a billion dollars in assets, has been criticized for potential conflicts of interest. The group previously invested in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, the AI start-up xAI, and a brain implant company, Neuralink, among others.
The Enhanced Games and Their Fight Against the IOC and WADA
The Enhanced Games are marketing themselves as an event to push the boundaries of human performance. Even if that was the original vision, it’s hard to believe that the project hasn’t been hijacked by investors for political purposes.
The Enhanced Games launched a $800 million lawsuit earlier this year, accusing World Aquatics, USA Swimming, and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) of running an “illegal campaign” to boycott and crush its event. The lawsuit has been criticized as a publicity stunt and has recently been dismissed by a New York Federal Judge.
There’s little evidence that the Enhanced Games fight against the IOC and WADA is rooted in the good of sport as much as it is their own personal bias against governing bodies.
The Enhanced Games are scheduled for May 24 of next year. The athletics portion is slated to feature the 100-meter sprint and short hurdles. However, as of now, it’s hard to see how the competition could take place. There are currently two athletes signed up for the 100-meter, both currently serving doping bans: Fred Kerley and Mouhamadou Fall.
Kerley is an Olympic medallist in the event, but even his personal best from three years ago of 9.76 seconds is a monumental distance from the world record. Fall is also 3 years removed from his personal best, and even that is 0.35 seconds off the world record with a wind over the allowable limit.
There are currently no athletes committed to the men’s 110-meter hurdles or women’s 100-meter hurdles.
Of these events, only the women’s 100-meter would have a plausible shot of showcasing a new world record. The three fastest runners ever in the event, Masai Russell, Tia Jones, and Tobi Amusan, are all still running. Russell and Jones both ran within 0.07 seconds of the record legally last year, and Amusan set the record in 2022. It’s extremely unlikely any of these women will join the Enhanced Games since it would certainly mean losing their sponsorships and potentially facing lifetime bans from World Athletics events.
The unfortunate truth is that there’s a good chance that the average person will get duped into thinking the Enhanced Games is a true showcase of athletic potential. If you’re reading this article, you’re probably somebody who already has an interest in athletics and understands that the event is a publicity stunt.
But somebody who doesn’t regularly follow athletics likely won’t be able to grasp what a monumental difference there is between the world record in the 100-meter dash of 9.58 seconds and a time of about 9.90 seconds, which seems plausible if Kerly shows up in good shape and stays healthy.
If we look at the past, we can mostly agree that any time right-wing politicians and supporters start talking about creating “super humans” as the Enhance Games have, it’s generally not the correct side of history we want to be on.