[5] In 1918–1919, he quit his job at the Company and started a new business dealing with rolling stock maintenance — the venture was instantly successful, a fact which Pandrea attributed to the infrastructure's decay under the previous occupation by the Central Powers.

Together with Aristide Blank and Max Auschnitt, he was one of the major businessmen present in the king's camarilla (see National Renaissance Front);[10][14][15][16] such political connections also implied that his success was partly ensured by preferential deals agreed with the state, and in some cases by the placement of inferior products on a captive market.

[14][18] Petre Pandrea also alleged that, soon after turning 17, the virgin Lulu had been raped by Carol on board his Luceafărul yacht — before her father decided to intervene, remove her from the circle of friends, and send her to study in Paris.

[12] At a time when Nazi Germany was gaining more influence in Romania, Nicolae Malaxa collaborated with Hermann Göring in confiscating the assets of the Jewish Auschnitt (who had been arrested and prosecuted on false charges in September 1939),[19] and subsequently placed his industrial empire in the service of the Reichswerke during World War II.

[14] Probably sympathizing with Nazi ideology, he had financed the activities of all political parties, including the Romanian far right Iron Guard organization as early as the mid-1930s,[10][22] and especially throughout the National Legionary State the latter established.

[23] During the Rebellion and Pogrom it provoked in January 1941, the Guard made use of arms manufactured by Malaxa, as well of his house (turned into a citadel and attacked by the Romanian Army)[10][24] — he was consequently put on trial by Ion Antonescu's government.

[24] In February 1945, several months after the August 1944 coup d'état which toppled Antonescu, and following the start of Soviet occupation, his Bucharest factories were at the center of mysterious and violent events.

[27] In May of that year, he met with the ousted Nicolae Rădescu, and financed him money to start issuing an anti-communist magazine titled Luceafărul (of which philosopher Mircea Eliade was editor).

In a CIA report from January 1953 he was labelled a "financial shark," a "slippery fence rider, who plays both ends against the middle for personal reasons," and "the most perfidious man in Romania.