Donald Trump has named hedge fund executive Scott Bessent as his Treasury Secretary.
Bessent is known to be a supporter of Trump’s policies, including the introduction of tariffs and has advocated for tax reform and deregulation in order to spur more bank lending and energy production.
The appointment, announced on Friday evening, places him at the helm of a cabinet position with vast influence over economic, regulatory and international affairs.
If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.
Writing on Truth Social making the announcement, Trump explained Bessent’s credentials.
‘I am most pleased to nominate Scott Bessent to serve as the 79th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Scott is widely respected as one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,’ Trump began.
‘Scott’s story is that of the American Dream. Scott has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda. On the eve of our Great Country’s 250th Anniversary, he will help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States, as we fortify our position as the World’s leading Economy, Center of Innovation and Entrepreneurialism, Destination for Capital, while always, and without question, maintaining the U.S. Dollar as the Reserve Currency of the World,’ Trump wrote.
Bessent, a longtime hedge fund investor taught at Yale University for several years.
Trump also said he would nominate Russel Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget, a position Vought held during Trump’s first presidency.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump wrote: ‘I am very pleased to nominate Russell Thurlow Vought, from the Great State of Virginia, as the Director of the United States Office of Management and Budget (OMB). He did an excellent job serving in this role in my First Term – We cut four Regulations for every new Regulation, and it was a Great Success!
‘Russ graduated with a B.A. from Wheaton College, and received his J.D. from the Washington University School of Law. Russ has spent many years working in Public Policy in Washington, D.C., and is an aggressive cost cutter and deregulator who will help us implement our America First Agenda across all Agencies.
‘Russ knows exactly how to dismantle the Deep State and end Weaponized Government, and he will help us return Self Governance to the People. We will restore fiscal sanity to our Nation, and unleash the American People to new levels of Prosperity and Ingenuity. I look forward to working with you again, Russ. Congratulations. Together, we will Make America Great Again!’
Wall Street had been closely watching who Trump will pick, especially given his plans to remake global trade through tariffs.
Bessent was picked from a crowded field of candidates for the coveted role.
That list included Apollo Global Management Chief Executive Marc Rowan and former Federal Reserve Governor Kevin Warsh.
Investor John Paulson had also been a leading candidate, but dropped out while Wall Street veteran Howard Lutnick, another contender, was appointed as head of the Commerce Department.
Bessent, 62, primarily lives in Charleston, South Carolina with his husband and two children.
He grew up in the fishing village of Little River, South Carolina, where Bessent has said his father, a real estate investor, experienced booms and busts.
Bessent worked for noted short seller Jim Chanos in the late 1980s and then joined Soros Fund Management, the famed macroeconomic investment firm of billionaire George Soros.
He soon helped Soros and top deputy Stanley Druckenmiller on their most famous trade – shorting the British pound in 1992 and earning the firm more than $1 billion.
In 2015, Bessent raised $4.5 billion, including $2 billion from Soros, to launch Key Square Group, a hedge fund firm that bets on macroeconomic trends.
Key Square’s main fund gained about 31% in 2022, according to media reports, but firm assets have declined to approximately $577 million as of December 2023, according to a regulatory filing.
Through his family office, Bessent controls a number of businesses in industries including agriculture, hospitality, publishing, and real estate. He has been in the Investment Management Business for over 35 years.
Born in Conway, South Carolina, Scott is a member of the French Huguenot Church of Charleston, where his family were founding members in the 1680s.
Because of family economic anxiety, Scott took his first summer job at the age of nine.
He attended Yale University, graduating in 1984. Scott was also an Adjunct Professor of Economic History at Yale.
Following Trump’s election victory the market surged. Bessent wrote the market’s reaction signaled investor ‘expectations of higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans.’
Bessent follows other financial luminaries who have taken the job, including former Goldman Sachs executives Robert Rubin, Hank Paulson and Steven Mnuchin, Trump’s first Treasury chief.
Janet Yellen, the current secretary and first woman in the job, previously chaired the Federal Reserve and White House Council of Economic Advisers.
As the 79th Treasury secretary, Bessent would essentially be the highest-ranking U.S. economic official, responsible for maintaining the plumbing of the world’s largest economy, from collecting taxes and paying the nation’s bills to managing the $28.6-trillion Treasury debt market and overseeing financial regulation, including handling and preventing market crises.
The Treasury boss also runs U.S. financial sanctions policy, oversees the U.S.-led International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other international financial institutions, and manages national security screenings of foreign investments in the U.S.
Bessent would face challenges, including safely managing federal deficits that are forecast to grow by nearly $8 trillion over a decade due to Trump’s plans to extend expiring tax cuts next year and add generous new breaks, including ending taxes on Social Security income.
Without offsetting revenues, this new debt would add to an unsustainable fiscal trajectory already forecast to balloon U.S. debt by $22 trillion through 2033.
Managing debt increases this large without market indigestion will be a challenge, though Bessent has argued Trump’s agenda would unleash stronger economic growth that would grow revenue and shore up market confidence.
Bessent would also inherit the role carved out by Yellen to lead the Group of Seven wealthy democracies to provide tens of billions of dollars in economic support for Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion and tighten sanctions on Moscow.
But given Trump’s desire to end the war quickly and withdraw U.S. financial support for Ukraine, it is unclear whether he would pursue this.
Another area where Bessent will likely differ from Yellen is her focus on climate change, from her mandate that development banks expand lending for clean energy to incorporating climate risks into financial regulations and managing hundreds of billions of dollars in clean energy tax credits.
With Trump promising sweeping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike, all eyes will be on how Trump’s new Treasury chief walks the line between supporting these efforts and fanning trade tensions that might roil the global economy
Trump, a climate-change skeptic, has vowed to increase production of U.S. fossil fuel energy and end the clean-energy subsidies in President Joe Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
The Treasury secretary is also the administration’s closest point of contact with the Federal Reserve.
Both Yellen under Biden and Mnuchin under Trump typically met weekly with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, often over breakfast or lunch.
Bessent has floated the idea of creating a ‘shadow’ Fed chair.
This would entail nominating as early as possible a presumptive Powell predecessor to the Fed Board who would then deliver their own policy guidance so that, as Bessent told Barron´s last month, ‘no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore.’
The next seat to open up at the Fed Board is that of Governor Adriana Kugler, whose term runs to January 2026.
Bessent has since said he no longer thinks the idea of a shadow chair worth pursuing, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Powell’s term as Fed chair expires in May 2026, but presidents rarely wait until the Fed chief’s term ends before nominating a successor.