Trump picks gay billionaire to serve as treasury secretary
Scott Bessent, head of Key Square Group and former chief investment officer of Soros Fund Management. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Donald Trump has nominated gay billionaire Scott Bessent to serve as secretary of the treasury, in his new administration.
If approved by the senate, Bessent would become the first out gay cabinet secretary in Republican history.
Bessent is the founder of the macro investment firm Key Square Group and believed to have a net worth of $1 billion (£795 million), Celebrity Net Worth reported. He is a former partner at Soros Fund Management and graduated from the prestigious Yale University with a political science degree.
In a statement posted on Truth Social, Trump praised Bessent as “one of the world’s foremost international investors and geopolitical and economic strategists”, adding: “Scott’s story is that of the American Dream… together, we will make America rich again, prosperous again [and] affordable again.”
Bessent made his support of clear in October, by suggesting that shares were rising because Wall Street was banking on a Trump victory in the general election.
“Look, this is a Trump economy. This is a Trump stock market,” he said.
Scott Bessent would be the first out gay Cabinet secretary in a Republican administration
In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Bessent claimed that Trump’s first-term tax cuts would become permanent, eliminating taxes on tips, social-security benefits and overtime pay. He also said there would be a focus on enacting tariffs.
He had already described the tariffs a “negotiating tool with our trading partners”, despite a majority of economists condemning them as inflationary.
Bessent, who has donated $3 million (approximately £2.4 million) to Republicans this cycle, has previously given money to the Democrats.
Despite being gay – he and his husband, former New York City prosecutor John Freeman, have two children – Bessent does not seem to have Trump’s poor LGBTQ+ rights record at the forefront of his mind.
Trump has already nominated anti-vaxxer Robert F Kennedy Jr as health secretary, “anti-woke” Fox News presenter Pete Hegseth for secretary of defence, and anti-LGBTQ+ governor Kristi Noem to head up the Homeland Security department. Meanwhile, Elon Musk is set for a new efficiency role, which might not be a governmental appointment so could escape the need for congressional approval.
Possibly the president-elect’s most controversial pick was Matt Gaetz, who was under investigation by the House Ethics Committee, as attorney general, but the former congressman has now dropped out of consideration.
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