Investor Scott Bessent has been nominated by Donald Trump to serve as treasury secretary. The billionaire hedge fund manager has spent his career in finance and the nomination for this post has been one of the most anticipated in recent days.
Here are five things to know about the person who could have vast influence over economic, regulatory and international affairs.
His finance career
Bessent, 62, from South Carolina, has spent his career in finance, working for macro investment billionaire George Soros and noted short-seller Jim Chanos, as well as running his own hedge fund.
As a money manager, he made a large bet on Trump winning after spotting what he called an anomaly in the market – that political and market analysts were too negative on what a Trump victory would mean.
The market’s surge after Trump’s election victory, he wrote, signaled investor expectations of “higher growth, lower volatility and inflation, and a revitalized economy for all Americans”.
He’s ‘all in’ for Trump
Bessent, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment, has advocated for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and energy production, as noted in a recent opinion piece he wrote for the Wall Street Journal.
He has called for rolling back government subsidies, deregulating the economy and raising domestic energy production. Unlike many on Wall Street, Bessent has also defended the use of tariffs, which are Trump’s favorite economic tool.
“I was all in for President Trump. I was one of the few Wall Street people backing him,” Bessent told Stone over the weekend.
“Bessent has been on the side of less aggressive tariffs,” said Oxford Economics’ Ryan Sweet, adding that picking him makes the steep tariffs Trump proposed on the campaign trail less likely.
He’s one of a few
Bessent will take his investing knowledge down a rarefied career path that only a few other prominent Wall Street luminaries have followed: running the US Treasury.
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.
Other examples of US treasury secretaries who have come from finance include Steven Mnuchin, who served under Trump in his first term, and had worked at Goldman Sachs. Henry Paulson, who served as Treasury secretary under George W Bush, was also a Goldman Sachs alumnus, where he had been chairman and CEO.
A twisty race to the top
Bessent, along with John Paulson, had been an early favorite for the job earlier in the year according to a Reuters report at the time. He seemed to be in pole position a week after election day, on 12 November, when Paulson exited the race citing “complex financial obligations”.
However, there were many twists in the race for the top position.
On 13 November, banker Howard Lutnick, who was leading a transition team to vet personnel and draft policy, emerged as a top contender. Lutnick was reported to have directly lobbied for the Treasury post, even receiving the backing of Trump ally Elon Musk. However, Trump instead picked Lutnick, one of his biggest fundraisers, to lead his trade and tariff strategy as head of the commerce department.
The pool of candidates then widened when Rowan, and former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh were under consideration as well as Republican US senator Bill Hagerty, sources with knowledge of the transition process said at the time.
The choice came after days of deliberations by Trump as he sorted through a shifting list of candidates. Bessent spent day after day at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Florida providing economic advice, sources said, a proximity to the president-elect that may have helped him prevail.
In charge of the world’s largest economy
As treasury secretary, Bessent will essentially be the highest-ranking US economic official, responsible for maintaining the balance of the world’s largest economy, from collecting taxes and paying the nation’s bills to managing the $28.6tn treasury debt market and overseeing financial regulation, including handling and preventing market crises.
The treasury boss also runs US financial sanctions policy, has influence over the IMF, the World Bank and other international financial institutions, and manages national security screenings of foreign investments in the United States.
Bessent will face challenges, including safely managing federal deficits that are forecast to grow by nearly $8tn 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 US debt by $22tn through 2033.
Managing debt increases this large without market indigestion will be a challenge, though Bessent has argued Trump’s agenda will unleash stronger economic growth that will grow revenue and shore up market confidence.