Donald Trump offered Dave Portnoy Commerce Department position

Is anyone really surprised to learn Donald Trump may have offered Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy a position in his administration?

Then consider yourself surprised, because according to Portnoy, his interest was gauged about a possible position in the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Portnoy revealed as much Tuesday morning, also noting that he broke the same news two weeks ago during an appearance with Stuart Varney on Fox Business, but no one noticed.

I was offered a position in the government but I would’ve had to stop running Barstool to take it #DDTG pic.twitter.com/T1eNqCcPek

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) March 11, 2025

“I’ve never said this,” Portnoy told Varney last month. “I got asked to be – and they didn’t follow through – in the secretary of commerce for Trump’s department, to work under. They asked me that, and they said a condition would be I can’t run Barstool Sports… now I don’t know if it was serious if I said yes, but if you’re running a company, it’s tough to also run the government.”

Dave Portnoy dropped that piece of information while questioning Elon Musk’s ability to simultaneously run Tesla and his made-up government agency, DOGE. The caveat of having to temporarily give up his role with Barstool didn’t seem to bother Portnoy, but as a Tesla shareholder, he thinks Musk should have to do the same.

Portnoy clarified that he was not in the running for secretary of commerce, he was being offered a potential role to work in the U.S. Department of Commerce under secretary of commerce Howard Lutnick.

“Even if I wanted to do that, they never followed up,” he said of the possible offer, noting the whole exchange “was weird.”

Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Stephen A. Smith, Dave Portnoy, at this point, there should be no surprises about who holds or could hold a position of power in the United States government. Portnoy’s nickname is literally El Presidente, that has to hold a lot of meaning with Trump. And this wasn’t the first time Portnoy’s name was floated about potentially holding a position in office. In 2020, Elon Musk was the one encouraging Portnoy to run for office. But Musk probably never followed up.