Trump offers billionaire Scott Bessent Treasury secretary role, sources say
CNN
By Kristen Holmes, Sara Murray and Elisabeth Buchwald, CNN
(CNN) — President-elect Donald Trump has offered the Treasury secretary position to billionaire Scott Bessent, according to two sources familiar with the matter.
Bessent, 62, advised Trump on economic policy on the campaign trail and is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management. Before that, he was the chief investment officer at Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund started by Democratic megadonor George Soros. He gained prominence at the firm for leading efforts to bet against the British pound and Japanese yen that netted the firm billions of dollars in profits.
Allies previously told CNN that Trump liked Bessent’s billionaire bona fides and the fact that he converted to the MAGA movement after working for Soros.
Treasury secretary is seen as the top financial job in any administration and has become a trophy position for many well-heeled Wall Street donors. If confirmed by the Senate, Bessent’s early days on the job could be even more challenging than usual as he’ll have to face pressure to address the federal debt limit and Trump campaign promises.
Since Trump’s electoral victory, the US dollar has jumped, reaching a one-year high. The rally “is a vote of confidence in US leadership internationally and in the dollar as the world’s reserve currency,” Bessent said in a November 10 opinion piece he penned for The Wall Street Journal. Similar rallies in financial markets, he said, were signs investors “expect the Trump agenda to foster noninflationary growth that will drive private investment.”
He went on to advocate for Trump to pursue policies involving deregulation and tax cuts as well as “addressing the debt burden,” which he attributed to “four years of reckless spending.”
In the piece, however, Bessent made no mention of tariffs. Trump as a candidate pledged to impose 60% tariffs on goods from China, as well as 10% tariffs on goods from other countries.
In recent interviews with the Financial Times and CNBC, Bessent signaled support for a more gradual approach to tariffs aimed at containing potentially inflationary blowback that could arise from imposing such levies.
As CNN previously reported, Trump had ad cast a wider net for the position in recent days amid bitter infighting between Bessent and another top contender for the role, Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick, who also co-chairs Trump’s transition. The president-elect earlier this week named Lutnick as his pick to lead the Department of Commerce.
This story is breaking and will be updated.
CNN’s Kayla Tausche, Tami Luhby and Matt Egan contributed to this report.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
