Donald Trump’s own team of Mystery Men increasingly share traits with the lineup of late-’90s rejects, as he fills his government’s ranks with the most insane selections imaginable. Candidates like Kash Patel are the trademark of Trump Team 2.0, as the president stacks our government with fringe media figures, billionaire bigots, and the least qualified people possible, all while referencing them as the “best” the country has to offer. In reality, the majority of Trump’s picks are grossly under-qualified yes men who earned their positions by licking the 78-year-old’s boots to a shine at every opportunity. By kissing the ring or paying top dollar, they wormed their way into Trump’s inner circle, and Patel is by no means an outlier. The former prosecutor and current conspiracy theorist on par with Marjorie “Jewish Space Lasers” Greene has been a Trump loyalist from the start, and he’s set to enjoy a nice solid promotion with his confirmation as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He didn’t buy his way into the administration with cash, like Elon Musk, but rather with sheer spineless sycophancy, but that’s not to say he’s anywhere close to poor. How much is controversial FBI director Kash Patel worth? View this post on Instagram A post shared by FBI Director Kash Patel (@fbidirector_kashpatel) Like all of Trump’s other picks, Patel is deeply unqualified, a rampant conspiracy monger, and a brazen liar, but he differs from his peers where tax brackets are concerned. Patel isn’t worth close to the billions touted by new peers like Musk or Linda McMahon, but that’s not to say he’s a financial slouch. The son of immigrants, a group his new boss notoriously villainizes, Patel has enjoyed a successful career in both law and politics. He started his journey as a public defender before becoming a trial attorney with the Justice Department, which is right around when his shift into politics began. He’s been cozying up to Trump since 2017, when he first became senior committee aide to House Intelligence Committee chair Devin Nunes, and joined him in opposing investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election. He only ramped up the antics from there, elevating through the ranks of the first Trump administration, despite repeated clashes with numerous high-level departments. Even four years on, Patel still refuses to admit that Trump lost the 2020 election. His record of unprofessionalism and clear bias make him completely unqualified for a spot leading the FBI, and I’m far from the only person to think so. A full 23 former Republican officials agree, and they said as much in a late January 2025 letter proclaiming that confirming Patel would be “a grievous mistake that would endanger the FBI’s integrity and compromise its critical mission,” and blasting the nominee for being “motivated by revenge.” But all that work with Trump, when paired with the sale of his branded “K$H” merchandise, netted Patel a nice solid net worth of around $800,000, according to Celebrity Net Worth. Unfortunately, he uses those funds to do utterly deplorable things, like buy his way into the Trump administration and release politically-inspired (and grossly inaccurate) children’s books, all of which only serve to enrich him further.