Private Equity Is Coming for Your 401(k) Savings

Thanks to Donald Trump’s support and Joe Biden’s failure to intervene, private equity is inching ever closer to tapping into the trillions of dollars sitting in Americans’ retirement savings plans.

Calculator On Top Of 401K Statements

Private equity’s long game to get ahold of retirement plans saw its first major break under the first Trump administration. (DNY59 / Getty Images)


Private equity may soon be coming for your hard-earned retirement plan — thanks in part to President Joe Biden’s failure to stop the industry’s decades-long push to infiltrate retirement savings and the Trump administration’s presumed support of such an incursion.

Private equity, an opaque, high-fee industry dealing in high-risk and world-destroying investments, has long been trying to get its claws on the $11 trillion sitting in Americans’ retirement savings plans. On Monday, the Financial Times reported that the industry is launching a new lobbying effort to do so, with just days left before President Donald Trump takes power.

Should private equity succeed in fulfilling a longtime “dream” of tapping into the trillions of dollars held in 401(k)s and other defined-contribution retirement plans — which workers pay into, sometimes with an employer match — one executive told the Financial Times it could potentially double demand for the industry’s various funds. But advocates warn that private equity could endanger retirement savings in the same way the industry has imperiled public pension plans — by charging exorbitant fees and funneling money into risky and opaque investments.

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