“Scott is widely respected as one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,” Trump said in his announcement which was posted to Truth Social on Friday.
“[He] has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda,” he said, adding that Bessent would “support my Policies that will drive US Competitiveness, and stop unfair Trade imbalances.”
If Bessent’s nomination is confirmed by the Senate, he would almost immediately be plunged into the fight in Washington over extending the tax cuts from Trump’s first term.
Trump has also called for controversial changes to trade policy, proposing sweeping tariffs on all goods coming into the country.
Such ideas have been met with alarm in traditional economic and corporate circles.
In an interview with Fox News shortly before the election, Bessent said ensuring the tax cuts do not expire as planned at the end of next year would be his top priority, if he ended up in the administration.
“If it doesn’t happen, this will be the largest tax increase in US history,” he warned.
For other posts, Trump has been willing to back candidates with minimal experience in favour of loyalty and apparent conviction in his pledges.
But he has appeared more hesitant to buck convention at the Treasury Department, which serves as a key liaison between the White House and Wall Street and has critical functions that include collecting taxes, supervising banks, wielding sanctions and handling US government debt.
Bessent, a native of South Carolina, graduated from Yale University and started his career at the Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the oldest investment firms in the US.
He made his name in the 1990s betting against the British pound and Japanese yen while working for Soros, a major Democratic donor.
In 2015, he started his own fund, Key Square Capital Management, which is known for making investments based on big-picture economic policy.
He has also taught economic history at Yale, has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Institute.
He and his husband, a former New York City prosecutor, married in 2011 and have two children. He is known for philanthropy in South Carolina, where his family has deep roots.
Bessent has defended tariffs – a capstone of Trump’s protectionist agenda – arguing that opposition to them is rooted in political ideology and not “considered economic thought”.
But he has also characterised Trump’s support for such border taxes as a negotiating tool, suggesting the president-elect isn’t necessarily committed to aggressively raising duties.
That stance makes him more moderate than others whose names were floated for the treasury role, such as former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
However, Bessent has been a strong proponent of Trump’s embrace of the crypto industry. Such support would make him the first treasury secretary to openly champion cryptocurrency, sending a clear signal that Trump is serious about establishing the US as the “crypto capital of the planet”.
In an interview with Fox News over the summer, Bessent said he thought cryptocurrencies fitted well with the ethos of the Republican Party, and Democrats had overreacted to fraudsters such as Sam Bankman-Fried.
“Crypto is about freedom,” he said.