Investor Scott Bessent Emerges as Top Contender for Trump’s Treasury Secretary

Scott Bessent speaks at the National Conservative Conference in Washington on July 10, 2024. DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—Investor Scott Bessent is a top contender for President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for treasury secretary, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

Bessent, 62, is a seasoned hedge fund investor and the founder of global macro investment company Key Square Group. He earned his billion-dollar fortune when he bet against the Japanese yen alongside George Soros when Bessent served as the chief financial officer of the Soros Fund Management more than a decade ago.

Last month, during a speech before the Detroit Economic Club, Trump described Bessent as “one of the top analysts on Wall Street.”

Bessent contributed $3 million to pro-Trump PACs and Republican committees.

Karoline Leavitt, the Trump–Vance transition spokeswoman, told The Epoch Times on Nov. 12: “President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second administration. Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”

The financial markets have been paying close attention to Trump’s administration choices. The treasury secretary maintains a vital role in the president’s cabinet as the position can substantially influence the national economy and sway regulatory issues and geopolitical affairs.

According to the betting website Polymarket, Bessent has been the overwhelming favorite to be chosen as secretary of the Treasury, followed by Wall Street titans John Paulson and Howard Lutnick.

Incumbent Janet Yellen was appointed by President Joe Biden in November 2020. She previously served as head of the Federal Reserve under former President Barack Obama and Trump. Yellen also worked in the Clinton administration as chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, replacing renowned economist Joseph Stiglitz.

Bessent, who has taught at Yale University and previously served as an economic adviser to Trump, has said that he will follow through on Trump’s wishes if selected for a Cabinet position.

“I’m going to do whatever President Trump asks,” he said in an interview with CNBC shortly after Trump’s victory.

The hedge fund chief has been a vocal advocate for tariffs, often praising the president’s use of the trade levies as a negotiating tactic.

Bessent told the business news network that he would like trade levies to be “layered in gradually” to ensure that price adjustments appear over time and can be offset by disinflationary pursuits.

During a panel discussion at a June Manhattan Institute event, Bessent outlined a three-point plan to achieve 3 percent real economic growth, “through deregulation, more U.S. energy production, slaying inflation and forward guidance on competence for people to make investments—so that the private sector can take over from this bloated government spending.”

Speaking to Barron’s in October, Bessent proposed the idea of a “shadow Fed chair,” effectively nominating a replacement before current Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s term expires in 2026.

“You could do the earliest Fed nomination and create a shadow Fed chair,” Bessent said. “And based on the concept of forward guidance, no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore.”

Powell recently confirmed to reporters at a post-meeting press conference that he would not resign if Trump asked him to, and he said the incoming president could not fire him because it is “not permitted under the law.”

In January, Bessent wrote in a note to investors that the markets were rallying on the back of a “Trump rally.”

“We believe that equity markets are in the midst of a ‘Trump Rally’ that will last as long as he remains ahead of Biden in the polls,” Bessent said, saying that a second Trump term would mirror the “Calvin Coolidge-style Roaring Twenties policies over a Herbert Hoover outcome.”

John Paulson, a Wall Street veteran and founder of investment firm Paulson & Co., was considered one of the top contenders to serve as the next treasury secretary in the Trump administration. On Nov. 12, Paulson confirmed to The Epoch Times that he would not join the incoming administration in an official capacity because of his “complex financial obligations.”

“However, I intend to remain actively involved with the President’s economic team and helping in the implementation of President Trump’s outstanding policy proposals,” Paulson said in a statement.

U.S. stocks have rocketed to record highs since Trump’s victory a week ago. The blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite Index have surged by about 6 percent.