The economic elites of Ben Ali’s regime were organically linked to his clan and his system of political domination. Despite the decapitation and then the implosion of such a system, these actors were able to save their positions and assets. This research focuses on the strategies and mechanisms that enabled the survival and replacement of these elites. Based on a series of interviews with strategic players from the two successive regimes, this article shows that it was by combining a wait-and-see strategy during the crisis, the seizure of new economic opportunities and a post-Ben Ali political entryism that his economic elites were able to survive the change of regime and, above all, to position themselves as pivotal actors.