Dave Portnoy claims he was offered a government job under President Trump.
The Barstool Sports founder, 47, alleged on his “Davey Day Trader” podcast Tuesday that he got a call about “a couple of months ago” from someone in the administration who asked, “Hey, would you have any interest, Dave, in joining the Department of Commerce?”
The Department of Commerce serves “as the voice of business in the federal government,” per its website, and “works to drive U.S. economic competitiveness, strengthen domestic industry, and spur the growth of quality jobs in all communities” across the country. It is run by Secretary Howard Lutnick.
Portnoy added that he was also warned by the unknown person he spoke to that a “caveat of joining the government” is that he would have to relinquish his duties as the head of Barstool Sports.
The Massachusetts-born businessman said he’s wondered how Elon Musk has been able to become Trump’s right-hand man yet still run several companies, including SpaceX, X and Tesla.
Portnoy pondered, “The one thing that I do wonder with Elon, and he’s the CEO of Tesla, obviously, and he’s doing all this DOGE stuff — which I think is good, get rid of government waste.
“I’m for that, but how do you run Tesla when you’re working on DOGE 24/7?”
The former “BFFs” podcast co-host said he would want a CEO of any company he is a part of “at the eye of the ball,” overseeing what is happening and not being distracted by other matters.
“By the way, even if I wanted to do that, they never, like, followed up,” Portnoy added.
“They’re, like, let us know if you could find somebody to run Barstool … and if you are interested, we’ll schedule a call in a week to go over the next steps. That never happened, so it was weird.”
Page Six has reached out to a spokesperson for Trump but did not immediately hear back.
Portnoy — who was an outspoken critics of the Democratic party during the 2024 presidential election — did not receive a lot of support over the revelation in the comments thread of his post.
One user wrote, “This better not actually be true,” and another added, “They’re letting anybody work in the government these days, eh?”
However, Portnoy is a successful businessman with a reported net worth of $150 million.
He founded Bartstool Sports in 2003, which has gone on to launch hit podcasts like “Call Her Daddy.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Portnoy helped save several small businesses via his Barstool Fund, which raised more than $40 million to date in part due to donations made by Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Dana White, The Winklevoss twins, the New England Patriots and Musk, 53.
Page Six exclusively learned over the weekend that Portnoy’s next venture is a book, which we were told he has been quietly shopping around to publishers.
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