One of the dominant explanations behind the current challenges to meaningful democratization and democratic rule is that old elites actively undermine democratic norms and institutions out of a fear of losing their exclusive access to state resources. Moreover, scholars have documented examples of authoritarian elites reappearing and becoming established in new democracies long after the autocratic regime has collapsed. While there are theoretical arguments on the conditions under which elites are likely to survive democratization, we still lack systematic evidence for when this happens and a valid measure that captures their comeback in democracies. Against this background, this paper develops a theory of autocratic revolving doors - authoritarian elites leveraging their political connections, experience and skills to obtain political or economic prominence in new democracies – into a consistent and testable set of empirical implications. These are tested using a novel measure of autocratic elite comeback in politics with data on all autocratic cabinet members between 1963 and 2015. The results indicate that elites with a more prestigious portfolio (i.e. economy, internal affairs, budget) and former leaders are more likely to gain cabinet positions in democracy, while military leaders and members with less important positions (i.e. ambassador or adviser) are less likely to reappear in democratic politics. The results also show heterogeneous pathways of return that are systematically influenced by the characteristics of the position held by elites.