How do decisions about the economy affect the inclusivity and direction a population is taken after a longtime leader has been deposed? Employing a structured case study of post-2011 Egypt, this paper reconsiders dominant theoretical understandings of the relationship between political transitions and neoliberal economic reform. Based on interviews from relevant actors in the US and Egypt, primary documents including Egypt’s Closing Account of the General Budget, and material acquired from international financial institutions, this paper argues elites from both the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as well as businessmen connected to Military Inc. pursued economic policies that exclude popular social forces. This not only continued to enable crony capitalism but also reorganized the economy around the Defense Ministry, Military Inc.’s companies, and foreign investors partnering with them. Specifically, the paper examines how ties between transnational actors and those that oversee and distribute capital accumulation in Egypt help maintain and redefine an exclusivist political arena. Thus, it explores this topic by using the elites’ reform discourse, economic indicators from the state budget, and foreign direct investment to examine the changes and continuities in Egypt since Mubarak’s ejection. Therefore, this paper considers elements such as examining economic growth in the context of declining revenue injections, the effect and increases in the unaccountable “officers’ economy” on the economy, and the relationship between domestic power wielders and international actors and the ways in which this shapes the practice of contentious politics. By examining political transitions through a lens of political economy, we gain the capacity to explain lingering continuities, new changes, and gain insights into the lack of reform such as in the security sector or the media. More than path dependency, explaining transitions through a political economy approach exposes the crevasse between what elites are trying to do and how it produces resistance to these plans. Thus, such research findings become crucial for explaining the ongoing processes of political change in transitional settings because of how it defines and redefines incumbency and opposition. Thus, this paper contributes to the established debates on the political economy of transitions by adding a prominent case from the Arab world to cases that have largely come from Eastern European and Latin American experiences.