Scott Bessent will lead President Donald Trump's financial agenda as treasury secretary.
Bessent, a billionaire hedge fund manager, was confirmed in a 68 to 29 U.S. Senate vote on Monday and sworn in on Tuesday.
A past supporter of Democrats who worked for George Soros, Bessent was an enthusiastic supporter of Trump's reelection, hosting a series of fundraisers that drew tens of millions of dollars. He is one of 13 billionaires Trump has tapped to join his administration, ABC News reported.
Sixteen Democrats joined Republicans in supporting Bessent's nomination. This will be his first time overseeing a sprawling organization or working in government, The New York Times reported.
Beyond developing Trump's tax policies and creating his administration's budgets, Bessent will play a key role in implementing tariffs, set to be imposed on imports from Mexico and Canada beginning Saturday. Bessent has expressed a less aggressive approach to tariffs than Trump, saying they should be implemented strategically, and over time, in order to minimize economic disruption.
In his Senate confirmation hearing, he said "free trade must be balanced against fair trade, and clearly trade has not been fair and that has fallen on American workers."
Bessent has pledged to extend the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, enacted under Trump's first administration and set to expire this year. Bessent has pushed an ambitious plan to lower the federal budget deficit to 3%, achieve 3% GDP and produce 3 million more barrels of oil a day by the end of Trump’s second term, CNN reported.
The Treasury Department oversees the Internal Revenue Service, which Trump has portrayed as hostile to taxpayers. Bessent has been asked to review the viability of Trump's proposed “External Revenue Service” to collect tariff revenues, The Times reported.
Bessent committed to maintaining a program that allows taxpayers to file their returns directly to the IRS for free — at least for the 2025 tax season, which began Monday, The Associated Press reported.
The federal debt limit will pose one of Bessent's biggest challenges. Former Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has said the Treasury Department would need to deploy “extraordinary measures” to prevent the U.S. from defaulting on its debt if lawmakers did not lift or suspend the nation’s borrowing cap, The Times reported.
Bessent said during his confirmation hearing that the Federal Reserve, which has projected fewer rate cuts this year, should remain independent from the president’s influence and that U.S. sanctions on Russian oil should be more aggressive, The Associated Press reported.
Born in South Carolina, Bessent graduated from Yale University in 1984 and went to work for several finance firms. From 1991 to 2000, he served as managing partner of Soros Fund Management, a hedge fund started by Democratic megadonor George Soros. Bessent played a key role in the famous "Black Wednesday" trade that earned over $1 billion by betting against the British pound, The Times reported. He is founder of the hedge fund Key Square Capital Management.
His background and potential conflicts of interest raised concerns that he would prioritize the interests of Wall Street. Democrats pointed to a review of his tax returns that showed he had collected earnings from his hedge fund in a way that allowed him to avoid paying more than $900,000 in payroll taxes, per The Times.
Bessent, who has maintained he violated no laws, is in the process of divesting many of his investments, The Times reported.
"I'm all for aspirational goals, and like most Americans, I want a more productive economy, a lower deficit, and greater energy security," said Neale Mahoney, professor of economics at Stanford University, of Bessent's ambitious three-point plan. "At the same time, as an economist, I know that these goals will be difficult to achieve."
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