Introducing the Leading Candidates for Treasury Secretary
Wall Street is eagerly anticipating one crucial role in the upcoming administration.
It has been two weeks since President-elect Donald Trump secured a second term, and he is gradually forming his Cabinet.
Trump has announced several high-profile individuals to lead various departments, from Marco Rubio as secretary of State to Tulsi Gabbard as director of National Intelligence.
Wall Street is waiting for one important position that would guide Trump’s economic vision: Treasury secretary.
Four names have been floated as a successor to Janet Yellen, the current head of the U.S. Department of Treasury.
Here are the top selections that the president-elect is considering.
Scott Bessent
Bessent, 62, is the founder of global macro investment company Key Square Group and Trump’s key economic adviser. More than a decade ago, he earned his billionaire status alongside George Soros by betting against the Japanese yen.
Described by Trump as “one of the analysts on Wall Street,” Bessent has emerged as the leading candidate to lead the Treasury Department.
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He has been a vocal supporter of cryptocurrency and tariffs.
On inflation concerns surrounding Trump’s tariff plans, Bessent told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October that the economic measure can be “layered in gradually.” The idea, he told the business news network, is that higher prices can appear over time and be offset by disinflationary public policies.
The Wall Street veteran also noted in a separate interview with the Financial Times that the president-elect’s “maximalist” positions on trade can be watered down.
“My general view is that at the end of the day, he’s a free trader,” Bessent said. “It’s escalate to de-escalate.”
This past summer, speaking to Fox Business, Bessent espoused his excitement about Trump’s “embrace of crypto” that “fits very well with the Republican Party.”
“Crypto is about freedom and the crypto economy is here to stay,” Bessent said.
The seasoned Wall Street investor has garnered the support of many high-profile industry names, including Kyle Bass, a hedge fund investor at Hayman Capital Management.
He believes Bessent is “eminently more qualified” for the job.
“Scott understands markets, economics, people, and geopolitics better than anyone I’ve ever interacted with. Markets have already anticipated a Bessent choice,” Bass wrote in a Nov. 13 post on social media platform X.
Howard Lutnick
A longtime Trump friend, Howard Lutnick, 63, is the chairman and CEO of investment juggernauts Cantor Fitzgerald and BGC Partners. The billionaire co-chairs the Trump–Vance transition team, a position that involves picking candidates, vetting staff, and creating policy proposals.
He was one of Trump’s top surrogates on the campaign trail.
Like Bessent, Lutnick has advocated for some of Trump’s top economic proposals, particularly tariffs.
“When was America great?” he asked at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally last month. “At the turn of the century, our economy was rocking. This is 1900, 125 years ago. We had no income tax, and all we had was tariffs.”
Lutnick also conducted a plethora of media interviews championing the benefits of tariffs. He noted that it can be a revenue generator for the federal government and a negotiating tool to create fairness in global trade.
“Do we make a lot of money on tariffs, or do we bring productivity here, and we drive up our workers here? It’s a win-win scenario. I like both of them,” Lutnick said on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in October. “I think what’s going to happen is we’ll make a bunch of money on the tariffs. But mostly everybody else is going to negotiate with us, and we’re going to be more fair.”
Lutnick recently garnered the endorsement of Elon Musk, who said on X that he “will actually enact change.”
“Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas @howardlutnick will enact change,” Musk said on Nov. 16. “Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was chosen by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, said “Bitcoin will have no stronger advocate than” Lutnick.
“Bitcoin is the currency of freedom, a hedge against inflation for middle class Americans, a remedy against the dollar’s downgrade from the world’s reserve currency, and the offramp from a ruinous national debt,” he said in response to Bass on X.
Lutnick sits in third as a potential successor to Yellen, with 24 percent odds, according to Polymarket.
Kevin Warsh
Kevin Warsh, 54, recently entered the conversation as a potential nominee for Treasury secretary.
Warsh is a former investment banker at Morgan. He was an economic adviser to President George W. Bush from 2002 to 2006 and is presently working on Trump’s transition team, shaping economic policy and staffing.
While serving on the Federal Reserve Board as a governor from 2006 to 2011, Warsh helped craft the central bank’s response to the global financial crisis.
He was a staunch critic of then-Fed Chair Ben Bernanke’s endeavors, expressing skepticism that the central bank could stimulate the economy and bolster the labor market by lowering long-term interest rates. Instead, he urged his colleagues to pull back on their monetary policy easing in September 2009.
Since then, Warsh has been a member of the board of directors at UPS. He is also a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Shepard Family Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
After Trump’s 2016 election victory, Warsh was considered a frontrunner to helm the Federal Reserve (Fed). Jerome Powell was eventually chosen as the central bank chief.
“The central bank needs to be very clear about its reaction function, be clear about its goals, and not look like it’s lurching. That’s what put us in the mess we have,” Warsh told the business news network.
In the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic, the Fed purchased trillions of dollars in Treasury and mortgage-backed securities and corporate bonds to cushion the economic blows of the public health crisis.
The central bank’s balance sheet reached nearly $9 trillion. Since March 2022, when the Fed launched its tightening cycle, the balance sheet has fallen to about $7 trillion.
Warsh also raised inflation concerns, stating that the Fed will rekindle the inflation flame if it does not continue reducing its balance sheet, which is equal to about 25 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product.
“Price stability would be more easily achieved if the Fed continues to shrink its holdings,” Warsh said.
He is still seen succeeding Powell when his term expires in 2026.
Polymarket’s odds show that Warsh has a 28 percent chance of being chosen as Treasury secretary.
Marc Rowan
Marc Rowan, 62, is a billionaire investor who became one of the newer contenders.
He co-founded private equity titan Apollo Global Management in the 1990s, an investment giant with approximately $700 billion in assets under management. Rowan presently serves as the CEO.
Rowan has expressed optimism surrounding the president-elect’s team and its proposal to fundamentally overhaul the government.
Musk has been tapped by Trump to lead the proposed new Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE, one of the Trump team’s leading projects. The billionaire CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors believes DOGE could eliminate about $2 trillion from the federal government’s budget.
“Our financial situation is fixable,” Rowan said. “It is fixable in a way that is positive for the base that the president-elect has said that he wants to help. But it is not fixable by small amounts of tinkering. It is about wholesale change.”
The U.S. government’s annual budget is about $7 trillion.
Rowan has also criticized the Federal Reserve’s recent unwinding of restrictive monetary policy.
“To the extent we accelerate the economy and have to go in the other direction, that would not be a good day,” Rowan said to Bloomberg Television.
Polymarket gives Rowan a 15 percent chance of securing the Treasury post.
