Scott Bessent

Scott Bessent (born August 21, 1962, Conway, South Carolina, U.S.) is the United States secretary of the Treasury in the second administration of Pres. Donald Trump. Bessent spent much of his career on Wall Street, working for a time with liberal billionaire philanthropist George Soros. A multimillionaire, Bessent has given to liberal and conservative political candidates and causes, but, as a longtime Trump family friend, he has become one of the main public-facing voices for Trump’s economic policies, particularly on tariffs.

Early years

Bessent was born to Homer Gaston Bessent, Jr., and Barbara McLeod Bessent and grew up in South Carolina. His father was a real-estate developer who went bankrupt, which prompted a nine-year-old Scott Bessent to get his first summer job. Bessent went on to attend Yale University, where he worked on the campus newspaper, the Yale Daily News. In a 1981 story for the publication, he wrote about his experience as a Southerner in New England—including how he “was the only one in the dorm who was heartbroken when George Wallace decided not to run for president,” referring to the former Alabama governor. Wallace was known for fiercely opposing integration, but by 1981 he had begun to ask forgiveness from Alabama’s African American citizens for his racist past. Bessent considered becoming a journalist, but, when he missed out on the post of editor for the Yale Daily News, he pursued a career in finance. He got an internship with Jim Rogers, a money manager who was Soros’s first partner.

Business career

In the 1990s Bessent was managing partner of Soros Fund Management in London, working with Soros, the liberal investor and activist. Bessent earned the company $1 billion by betting against the British pound and Japanese yen. In 2000 he started his own hedge fund, Bessent Capital, but returned to Soros Fund Management in 2011 to work as chief investment officer. In 2015 he started another firm, Key Square Capital Management. He also worked as an adjunct professor at Yale.

Politics

Bessent has given to candidates of both major parties. A supporter of gay rights and marriage equality—he is married to former New York City prosecutor John Freeman—Bessent cohosted a Hamptons fundraiser in 2000 for Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore. Moreover, he has donated to Democrats Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, and former president Barack Obama. But he has had ties to the Trump family for years and was close friends with Trump’s younger brother, the late Robert Trump. Ahead of the 2016 election, which Trump was widely expected to lose to Clinton, Bessent told people they should take Trump more seriously as a candidate. Bessent donated $1 million to Trump’s 2017 inaugural committee.

Trump’s cabinet pick

By the time Trump mounted his third bid for office, in 2024, Bessent had become one of his biggest supporters on Wall Street. In February of that year he cohosted a fundraiser for the candidate days before the South Carolina Republican primary. Impressed with Bessent’s track record, Trump called him “one of the most brilliant men on Wall Street” during that election cycle.

After the election, Trump considered Bessent for Treasury secretary, along with several other candidates, including Cantor Fitzgerald chief executive Howard Lutnick. Tesla chief executive Elon Musk, who had ingratiated himself with Trump by giving strong financial backing to Trump’s campaign, urged the president-elect to select Lutnick. “My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will actually enact change,” Musk posted on his social media platform X in November 2024. But Bessent got a big boost from key Trump advisers Larry Kudlow and Steve Bannon, and Trump chose Bessent for the Treasury role. “Scott is widely respected as one of the World’s foremost International Investors and Geopolitical and Economic Strategists,” Trump posted on social media. “Scott’s story is that of the American Dream.” Lutnick went on to become Trump’s commerce secretary.

At his Senate confirmation hearing, Bessent called Trump’s second term a “generational opportunity to unleash a new economic golden age that will create more jobs, wealth and prosperity for all Americans.” He was confirmed by a 68–29 vote, in which 16 Democrats supported his nomination.

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Bessent’s time in the administration has been marked by controversy. His difficulties with Musk continued, including an altercation regarding who would run the Internal Revenue Service that reportedly got physical. When Musk showed up in the Oval Office with a black eye, speculation ran rampant that Bessent had delivered it, which prompted the Treasury secretary to declare in an interview with Bloomberg, “I can 100 percent say I did not give him the black eye.”

In the midst of Trump’s feud with Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell over interest rates, Trump asked Bessent to consider taking over the Fed, but Bessent reportedly said he wanted to stay at the Treasury. Bessent is seen as believing that cutting the federal debt is essential to creating a more stable economy. “The market and the economy have just become hooked, and we’ve become addicted to this government spending,” he said. How Bessent hopes to remedy that issue is unclear, but remarks he made in July 2025 were seen by some as suggesting a move toward privatizing Social Security. In the backlash that ensued, Bessent took to social media to clarify: “Our Administration is committed to protecting Social Security and to making sure seniors have more money.”

Bessent’s biggest influence has been on tariffs. He has tried to temper some of Trump’s more aggressive tariff proposals and to reassure financial markets that are worried the tariffs will lead to inflation and possibly a recession. Notably, he has been at odds with another Trump economic adviser, Peter Navarro, widely seen as the most hawkish member of the administration on the topic of tariffs. After Trump levied tariffs on imports from countries across the globe and imposed especially large tariffs on Chinese goods, Bessent worked to negotiate deals with many of those countries. He called the 145 percent tariffs targeting China unsustainable and told reporters, “This is the equivalent of an embargo and a break between the two countries in trade does not suit anyone’s interest.” He is seen as a key figure in securing in August 2025 a 90-day pause on tariffs aimed at China.

Personal life

Bessent is the first openly gay Treasury secretary. He married Freeman in 2011, and they have two children, Caroline and Cole.