# Apollo Global Management One of the world's largest alternative asset managers, founded in 1990 by [[Marc Rowan]], [[Leon Black]], and Josh Harris out of the wreckage of Drexel Burnham Lambert. Black's son [[Benjamin Black]] has run the [[Development Finance Corporation]] — the only federal agency with clear statutory authority to hold equity in private firms — since October 2025. In Q1 2026 its assets under management crossed **$1 trillion** for the first time, with Rowan — CEO since March 2021 — targeting $1.2 trillion in private loans by 2029. Apollo's dominance in **private credit** is the throughline connecting its two points of KB relevance: AI-infrastructure finance and Republican political money. ## KB Relevance Apollo enters the KB's frame not as a tech firm but as **balance-sheet infrastructure for the right's two defining projects of 2026** — the AI-compute buildout and the midterm fight to hold the Senate. Both flow through Rowan. ## AI-Infrastructure Finance In June 2026, Apollo co-arranged (with [[Blackstone]]) a **$35–36 billion private-credit package** funding [[Google]] TPU purchases for [[Anthropic]] — among the largest chip-financing debt transactions on record, backed by Broadcom. See [[Apollo-Blackstone Anthropic Chip Financing]]. The deal exemplifies a structural shift the KB tracks: the AI race is now underwritten by private-credit houses rather than equity alone, putting Wall Street's largest balance sheets directly inside the compute supply chain. Rowan has framed the AI disruption bluntly, telling lenders that anyone who "discovered eight weeks ago that enterprise software was vulnerable to AI... kinda weren't doing your job." ## Marc Rowan and the Trump Administration [[Marc Rowan]] is the most politically ascendant figure in private equity. After the November 2024 election he was interviewed by Trump for **Treasury Secretary**, and in January 2026 was appointed to the executive board of the **Board of Peace**, the body overseeing reconstruction of the Gaza Strip. He contributes overwhelmingly to Republican candidates and committees — the RNC, the NRSC, and [[Club for Growth]] among them — and gave $1M to Trump Victory in 2020. ## The Verso / Pine Tree Results PAC Nexus (Maine 2026) Apollo's political and financial threads converge in the **2026 Maine Senate race** (see [[ME-Sen-2026]]). Rowan contributed $50,000 to **Pine Tree Results PAC** — the super PAC backing incumbent [[Susan Collins]] against Democratic challenger [[Graham Platner]] — alongside fellow funders [[Stephen Schwarzman]], [[Paul Singer]], and [[Alex Karp]]. See [[Pine Tree Results PAC]]. The irony the opposition presses: Apollo, under Rowan, managed **Verso Corp.**, the paper company whose bankruptcy shuttered mills in Bucksport and Jay, gutting the very Maine mill towns now contested in the race. Reporting documented that Apollo forced a portfolio company to take on $250M in debt and pay it out as a dividend before bankruptcy — the financial-engineering pattern Platner's anti-oligarchy campaign runs against. The AFT and AAUP have separately accused Rowan of using company resources to fund a personal political agenda. ## See Also - [[Marc Rowan]] - [[Blackstone]] - [[Apollo-Blackstone Anthropic Chip Financing]] - [[Anthropic]] - [[Pine Tree Results PAC]] - [[ME-Sen-2026]] - [[Stephen Schwarzman]]