Scott Bessent

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Scott Bessent
Deputy
Michael Faulkender
Preceded byJanet Yellen
Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
In office
February 3, 2025 – February 7, 2025
PresidentDonald Trump
DeputyZixta Martinez
Preceded byZixta Martinez (acting)[1]
Succeeded byRussell Vought (acting)
Personal details
Born
Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent

(1962-08-21) August 21, 1962 (age 62)
Conway, South Carolina, U.S.
Political partyRepublican
Spouse
John Freeman
​
(m. 2011)​
Children2
EducationYale University (BA)
Scott Bessent's voice
Bessent's opening statement during his Senate confirmation hearing
Recorded January 16, 2025

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent (/ˈbɛsənt/ BESS-ənt; born August 21, 1962) is an American government official, investor, and hedge fund manager serving as the 79th United States secretary of the treasury since 2025. Before his government service, he was a partner at Soros Fund Management and the founder of Key Square Group, a global macro investment firm.

After graduating from

1992 sterling crisis
, generating over $1 billion in profit for the firm. After he left the Soros Fund, he established his own investment firm, Key Square Group, in 2015.

A major donor, fundraiser, and economic advisor for Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign,[2] Bessent was nominated for treasury secretary by Trump in November 2024 and confirmed by the United States Senate on January 27, 2025, by a vote of 68–29.

Bessent is the second openly gay man to serve in the Cabinet of the United States (after Pete Buttigieg) and the fifth openly gay man to serve in a cabinet-level office (after Demetrios Marantis, Richard Grenell, Buttigieg, and Vince Micone).[3] As the United States secretary of the treasury is fifth in the United States presidential line of succession, he is the highest-ranking openly LGBT person ever to serve in the U.S. federal government.[4]

Early life and education

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent was born on August 21, 1962,

Huguenot ancestry.[9]

Bessent earned a

The Yale Daily News, president of Wolf's Head Society, and treasurer for the class of 1984. He was chairman of the 1984 Yale Alumni Fund and assistant to the director of athletics.[7][11]

Career as investor and hedge fund manager

Bessent interned with investor

Brown Brothers Harriman, Kynikos Associates (Jim Chanos), and others.[13] Bessent joined Soros Fund Management (SFM) in 1991 and was a partner there throughout the 1990s, eventually becoming head of the London office.[6][14][15][16][17] In 1992, Bessent was a leading member of the team whose bet on the Black Wednesday collapse of the British pound garnered over $1 billion for the firm. His bet against the Japanese yen in 2013 brought additional profit.[18][19]

After resigning from SFM in 2000, Bessent founded a $1 billion hedge fund.

Protégé Partners.[21][14] Bessent returned to SFM as chief investment officer from 2011 to 2015.[15][22] He left in 2015 to begin a new firm, Key Square Group.[16][17][23][24]

From 2006 to 2011, Bessent was an adjunct professor of economic history at Yale, where he taught three courses.[13][14]

Key Square Group

Bessent founded Key Square Group in 2015 with Michael Germino, who had been the global head of capital markets at SFM.[25] Key Square uses geopolitics and economics to make macro investments.[18] Key Square received a $2 billion anchor investment from George Soros.[26] At the end of 2017, Key Square's assets were $5.1 billion.[26][27] Key Square's main fund returns increased by 13% in 2016 but declined or broke even every year from 2017 to 2021 before making major gains in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The inconsistent track record scared away clients. Assets under management shrank from $5.1 billion in 2017 to $577 million in 2023 and the number of institutional investors declined from 180 to 20 over the same period.[28]

As part of a prearranged deal, in 2018 the firm returned the Soros capital as it took in other assets.[26] Its investors include Australia's sovereign wealth fund, Future Fund.[27]

Bessent announced that he would sever ties with the group as Treasury Secretary.[29]

Early involvement in politics

In 2000, Bessent hosted a fundraiser for Al Gore at his East Hampton, New York, home.[30] He has also donated to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.[31] In 2016, Bessent donated $1 million to Donald Trump's 2017 presidential inaugural committee.[32] In 2023 and 2024, he donated more than $1 million to Donald Trump's 2024 campaign.[33]

In February 2024, Bessent hosted a fundraiser in Greenville, South Carolina, that raised nearly $7 million for Trump's 2024 campaign.[34] In April 2024, he was a host of a Palm Beach, Florida, fundraiser that raised $50 million for Trump's campaign.[35] In July 2024, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that Bessent was a key economic adviser to Trump.[36] He proposed a three-point economic plan for Trump modeled on Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's "Three Arrows" economic policy.[37]

Secretary of the Treasury (2025–present)

Bessent with Senator Tim Scott in 2024

Nomination and confirmation

On November 22, 2024, President-elect Trump announced his intention to nominate Bessent to serve as the United States secretary of the treasury in his second administration.[38][39][40] Bessent is the first openly gay treasury secretary, the second openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary of an Executive Department after Pete Buttigieg, and the fifth openly gay person to serve in a Cabinet-level capacity, including interim officeholders and offices elevated to Cabinet-rank (after Demetrios Marantis, Richard Grenell, Buttigieg, and Vince Micone).[41][42]

Bessent appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Finance on January 16, 2025. During the hearing, he defended plans to impose tariffs, supported tax cut extensions, and called for tougher economic policies on China and Russia.[43]

The United States Senate Committee on Finance advanced his nomination to the Senate floor by a 16–11 vote on January 21, 2025.[44] The Senate voted 68–29 to approve his nomination on January 27.[45][46]

During Bessent's final confirmation hearing on January 27, a man intending to murder Bessent was arrested at the

US Capitol. The man was in possession of multiple Molotov cocktails and a knife.[47]

Tenure

Bessent was sworn in as the 79th secretary of the treasury by Supreme Court justice

Sovereign Wealth Fund.[52]

EPA administrator Lee Zeldin
, April 2, 2025

In April 2025, after Trump announced widespread tariffs, Bessent told "every country": "do not retaliate, sit back, take it in, let's see how it goes, because, if you retaliate, there will be escalation."[53] Stocks then fell by over $6 trillion, but Bessent said: "I see no reason that we have to price in a recession"; he also rejected the idea that Americans would delay retirement due to worries about a fall in their retirement savings, saying that for "Americans who want to retire right now, the Americans who put away for years in their savings accounts, I think they don't look at the day-to-day fluctuations" of stocks.[54][55]

Views

In a 2022 article commemorating former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe, Bessent wrote: "President Trump's most enduring achievement may have been to wake the United States and the world to the growing dangers of an ever-more-antagonistic China. In response, Abe's greatest foreign policy achievement was taking this awakening and developing a multilateral solution for containment."[56]

Bessent has praised Trump's proposal to implement broad tariffs.[57] In a November 2024 Fox News op-ed, he wrote that the "U.S. opened its markets to the world, but China's resulting economic growth has only cemented the hold of a despotic regime" and argued tariffs "are a means to finally stand up for Americans".[58] Bessent argued that Trump's pledges to impose blanket 20% tariffs on all imports "were maximalist positions that would probably be watered down in talks with trading partners".[19] In March 2025, amid Trump's threats to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico, Bessent defended the tariffs, saying, "Access to cheap goods is not the essence of the American Dream."[59]

Shadow Fed chair proposal

In a 2024 interview in

Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell, which was "to nominate and seek Senate confirmation of Powell's replacement well over a year before Powell's term ends in May 2026". This has been called the "shadow Fed chair" because the confirmed candidate could forecast Fed decisions (forward guidance) after May 2026, while the present Fed chair makes decisions on present Fed policies. In essence, the plan would weaken the Fed chair's ability to present forward guidance for most of 2026.[60]

As Bessent described the plan on an October 11, 2024, broadcast on Bloomberg Radio:[61]

If you believe forward guidance is good, why can't you give forward guidance on who the Fed chair is going to be. You could do one of two things: The current Fed chair could be reappointed, so you've created a path there. Or the new Fed chair nominee would give forward guidance beyond the current Fed chair's sell-by date.

Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told Barron's the idea would "create a lot of noise in the market" and would create a situation where investors would have to decide which Fed chair, the present one or the future one, had the greatest weight in terms of the decisions the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Federal Reserve's main policy-setting committee.[62]

Personal life

Pink Palace in Charleston

Bessent resides in Charleston, South Carolina,[63] and belongs to the Huguenot Church,[64] a religious association whose expansion his ancestors supported in 1680.[9] Bessent is openly gay and married former New York City prosecutor John Freeman in 2011. They have two children.[65][66]

In 2016, Bessent purchased the historic John Ravenel House, owned by John Ravenel and inherited by his son St. Julien Ravenel and his wife Harriott Horry Ravenel. The building restoration project was awarded the Preservation Society of Charleston's Carolopolis Award in 2021. The mansion, known as the "Pink Palace", is on Battery Street.[67][68][69][70] In November 2024 it was listed for $22,250,000.[71] As of December 10, 2024, the sale was under contract.[72]

Bessent's net worth is at least $521 million, according to his December 28, 2024, financial assets disclosure by the

U.S. Office of Government Ethics.[73][74]

Board memberships

Bessent sits on the university council at Yale University.[11] He and his sister donated the Bessent Library to Yale University.[75] Bessent has endowed three scholarships at Yale: one for students who are first-generation college matriculants, one for students from South Carolina, and one for students from the Bronx.[75]

Bessent chaired the investment committee and is a former member of the executive committee on the board of trustees of

AIDS.[11][78] He is a trustee of Classical American Homes Preservation Trust (renamed the Richard Hampton Jenrette Foundation),[79] and a former board member of the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina.[76][80] Bessent is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[11][76]

Philanthropy

Bessent opened two foundations in 2022, and created the McLeod Rehabilitation Center at the

Prince's Trust in London and the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City.[67] He has supported restoration of the Nathaniel Russell House, a National Historic Landmark in Charleston.[82]

References

  1. ^ Williams, Claire (February 1, 2025). "Chopra out at the CFPB". American Banker. Retrieved March 5, 2025.
  2. ^ Restuccia, Andrew; Schwartz, Brian; Timiraos, Nick; Leary, Alex (November 22, 2024). "Trump Picks Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 22, 2024.
  3. ^ Ring, Trudy (November 23, 2024). "Trump nominates investment manager Scott Bessent, a gay man, as Treasury secretary". The Advocate. Retrieved November 30, 2024.
  4. ^ Christopher Kane (November 24, 2024). "Trump nominates gay man for Treasury secretary". Washington Blade. Retrieved December 5, 2024.
  5. ^ "Scott H Bessent". Ancestry.com. Retrieved January 28, 2025.
  6. ^ a b c "Meet The Hedge Fund Superstar George Soros Just Hired To Take Over His $25 Billion Fund," Business Insider, September 19, 2011
  7. ^
    Newspapers.com.Open access icon
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  9. ^ a b Reynolds, Nick (November 13, 2024). "Scott Bessent of Charleston is on Trump's shortlist for US Treasury secretary. Who is he?". Post and Courier.
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  11. ^ a b c d "New Members Appointed to University Council". Yale Daily News. November 8, 2016.
  12. ^ "Scott Bessent". www.moneymazepodcast.com.
  13. ^ a b c "Life and Money Management," Yale Alumni Magazine, Sept/Oct 2015
  14. ^ a b c Zuckerman, Gregory (September 20, 2011). "Soros Puts New Man at Helm". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved November 12, 2024.
  15. ^ a b "Soros appoints new CIO to family office". Financial Times. September 19, 2011.
  16. ^ a b "Soros's Investment Chief to Depart". The Wall Street Journal. August 4, 2015.
  17. ^ a b "Soros' CIO to Start Own Hedge Fund with $2 Bln". Reuters. August 4, 2015.
  18. ^ a b Zuckerman, Gregory; Rudegeair, Peter (October 10, 2024). "The Ex-Soros Executive Who is Trump's New Obsession". The Wall Street Journal.
  19. ^ a b Rogers, Alex; Politi, James (October 13, 2024). "Trump would not weaken the dollar, says adviser Scott Bessent". Financial Times.
  20. ^ "Soros' European Investment Head Bessent Leaves," Bloomberg, June 8, 2000
  21. ^ "Soros Aide Wins Kudos for Japan Bets". Wall Street Journal. February 14, 2013.
  22. ^ "George Soros' Protégé Just Nailed One of the Biggest Hedge Fund Launches Ever," Business Insider, January 5, 2016
  23. ^ Foley, Stephen (August 4, 2015). "Scott Bessent quits Soros group to launch hedge fund". Financial Times. Retrieved November 12, 2024.
  24. ^ Foley, Stephen; Johnson, Miles; Childs, Mary (January 5, 2016). "Former George Soros executive raises $4.5bn for new fund". Financial Times. Retrieved November 12, 2024.
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  28. ^ "Exclusive: Fund manager Bessent scores double on Trump victory". Reuters. 2024.
  29. ^ Rappeport, Alan. "Scott Bessent, Trump's Billionaire Treasury Pick, Will Shed Assets to Avoid Conflicts". The New York Times. The New York Times. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
  30. ^ Dao, James; Seelye, Katherine Q. (August 6, 2000). "The 2000 Campaign: The Vice President; Gore's Theme-a-Day Tour Will Start With a No. 2 Pick". The New York Times.
  31. ^ Rappeport, Alan; Haberman, Maggie (November 22, 2024). "Trump Taps Investor Scott Bessent as Treasury Secretary". The New York Times.
  32. ^ Kight, Stef (April 19, 2017). "The big $$$ donors to Trump's Inaugural Committee". Axios.
  33. ^ "Individual Contributions - 'Bessent, Scott'". Federal Election Commission. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  34. ^ Kim, Soo Rin; Ibssa, Lalee (February 21, 2024). "Trump brings in more than $6.8 million from Greenville, South Carolina, fundraiser ahead of primary". ABC News.
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  40. ^ Cheung, Brian; Sonnier, Olympia; Richards, Zoë (November 22, 2024). "Trump picks Scott Bessent to serve as treasury secretary". NBC News. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
  41. ^ "What to know about Scott Bessent, Trump's Treasury pick". Axios. November 22, 2024. Retrieved November 23, 2024.
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  43. ^ Rappeport, Alan; Duehren, Andrew (January 16, 2025). "Trump Treasury Pick Scott Bessent Defends Plans to Cut Taxes and Raise Tariffs". The New York Times. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
  44. ^ Stratford, Michael (January 21, 2025). "Senate panel advances Bessent nomination". Politico. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
  45. ^ "Senate confirms Scott Bessent as Trump's Treasury secretary". USA Today. January 27, 2025. Retrieved January 27, 2025.
  46. ^ "Senate confirms Scott Bessent as treasury secretary". CNN. January 27, 2025. Retrieved January 27, 2025.
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  64. ^ "Trump reassures Wall Street by appointing billionaire financier Scott Bessent to Treasury". November 23, 2024 – via Le Monde.
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  66. ^ Farah, Lynn (December 3, 2024). "Who is billionaire Scott Bessent's husband John Freeman? The partner of Trump's treasury secretary pick is a former prosecutor who lives with him in a historic house known as the 'Pink Palace'". Style. Retrieved March 13, 2025.
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  69. ^ Wise, Warren L. (June 21, 2016). "Palatial Purchase Palme Home B&B on East Battery, Known as the Pink Palace, Sells for $6.5 M". Post and Courier.
  70. ^ Riddle, Lyn (November 15, 2024). "SC historic John Ravenel house on High Battery in Charleston is for sale for $22.25M". The State.
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  73. ^ "Trump's pick for Treasury secretary discloses assets worth at least $521 million, including a home in the Bahamas and S&P 500 ETFs". Fortune. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
  74. ^ "Scott Bessent's OGE Form 278e" (PDF). HCL Domino. Retrieved January 18, 2025.
  75. ^ a b "Annual Report of Giving to Yale, 2000-2001," www.giving.yale.edu
  76. ^ a b c ""Three New Trustees Are Elected to the Board,"". Rockefeller University Press Release. March 3, 2016.
  77. ^ Ackerman, Andrew. "Trump's treasury pick, Scott Bessent, to divest from assets". Washington Post. Retrieved January 17, 2025.
  78. ^ "Out 100 -- Money + Business: Scott Bessent", Out Magazine, January 2001.
  79. ^ "Team". Classical American Homes Preservation Trust. Retrieved November 25, 2024.
  80. ^ "Palatial Purchase Palmer Home B&B on East Battery, Known as the Pink Palace, Sells for $6.5M". Post and Courier. June 21, 2016.
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  82. ^ Murray, Ashley (November 23, 2024). "Hedge fund chief and tariff fan Scott Bessent to lead Treasury under Trump • SC Daily Gazette". SC Daily Gazette. Retrieved November 25, 2024.

Further reading

Government offices
Preceded by Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Acting
2025 		Succeeded by
Political offices
Preceded by United States Secretary of the Treasury
2025–present 		Incumbent
Order of precedence
Preceded byas Retired Associate Justice of the Supreme Court Order of precedence of the United States
as Secretary of the Treasury 		Succeeded byas Secretary of Defense
U.S. presidential line of succession
Preceded byas Secretary of State Fifth in line
as Secretary of the Treasury 		Succeeded byas Secretary of Defense
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