Scott Bessent

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent ( BESS-ənt; born August 21, 1962) is an American businessman, financial commentator, and government official serving since 2025 as the 79th United States secretary of the treasury. Bessent was a partner at Soros Fund Management (SFM) and founded Key Square Group, a global macro investment firm. He is the first openly gay person to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, the first openly gay U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in a Republican administration, the second openly gay Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary, and the highest-ranking LGBTQ government official in U.S. history.

Bessent graduated from Yale University in 1984 with a BA in political science. After holding a series of financial positions, he was hired by Soros Fund Management (SFM) in 1991, eventually becoming the head of its London office. While serving in the role in September 1992, he was a leading member of the SFM group, which profited by $1 billion on Black Wednesday, the British pound sterling crisis. In 2013, he made SFM another $1.2 billion by betting against the Japanese yen. After leaving the Soros Fund in 2015, Bessent established Key Square Group, a hedge fund.

Bessent served as an economic advisor, fundraiser, and major donor for the Donald Trump 2024 presidential campaign. On November 22, 2024, President-elect Trump announced his nomination of Bessent for U.S. Treasury Secretary in the second Trump administration. Bessent was confirmed by the United States Senate on January 27, 2025, by a 68–29 vote, and sworn in as the 79th U.S. Treasury Secretary on January 28, 2025.

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent was born on August 21, 1962, in Conway, South Carolina, to Barbara (née McLeod) and Homer Gaston Bessent Jr. (one of three children acknowledged at the time of Homer's death). The Bessent family is of French and Scottish descent, and had a Baptist affiliation at times in its history. Scott's father founded and owned one of the Grand Strand's early real estate companies. His mother, a local businesswoman, assumed responsibility for that business when Homer was ill for a period in the 1960s. Scott's mother married five times, twice to Bessent’s father. John Jenrette, a disgraced member of the United States House of Representatives, was Scott Bessent's uncle.

Bessent had a summer job as a busboy at age 9. In 1980, he graduated from North Myrtle Beach High School in Little River, South Carolina. He considered attending the United States Naval Academy but decided not to as he was unwilling to lie about his sexual orientation.

Bessent graduated from Yale College in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in political science. He was on the board of the Yale Daily News, acted as president of the Wolf's Head Society, and was the class treasurer. He also chaired the 1984 Yale Alumni Fund and was an assistant to the director of athletics. As an undergraduate, Bessent interned with Jim Rogers, a co-founder of the Quantum Fund, after meeting him at a Yale career center event.

After college, Bessent worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, at the Riyadh-based company Olayan Group, and then at the hedge fund Kynikos Associates, under Jim Chanos. In Business Insider, Julia La Roche connected Bessent's work with Chanos to his eventual opportunity at Soros Fund Management (SFM), noting that George Soros was a major Chanos client. In the Yale Daily News, Asher Boiskin suggested Soros himself recruited Bessent. In 1992, Bessent was a leading member of the SFM team whose bet on the Black Wednesday collapse of the British Pound sterling earned the firm over $1 billion. Some sources, such as Forbes, call Bessent a "protégé" of Soros.

After resigning from SFM in 2000, Bessent founded a $1 billion hedge fund, Bessent Capital. The fund closed in 2005. Bessent has said he learned that he should not change his style or the firm's approach because of investor preferences. He was also a senior investment adviser to fund-of-funds Protégé Partners. Bessent returned to SFM as chief investment officer from 2011 to 2015. His bet against the Japanese yen in 2013 yielded more than $1.2 billion in profit in three months.

From 2006 to 2011, Bessent was an adjunct professor of economic history at Yale, teaching three courses.

Bessent left SFM in 2015 to launch Key Square Group, a hedge fund named after a spot on the chessboard, with Michael Germino, who had been the global head of capital markets at SFM. It received a $2 billion anchor investment from George Soros. Key Square uses geopolitics and economics to make macro investments. Its main fund returned 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. It earned a "double digits" percentage profit in 2024 betting that U.S. stocks would rise after Trump won the election.

In 2018, as part of a prearranged deal, the firm returned Soros's investment as it took in other assets. Its investors include Australia's sovereign wealth fund, Future Fund. Bessent announced that he would sever ties with the group after assuming the role of treasury secretary.

In 2000, Bessent hosted a fundraiser for Al Gore at his home in East Hampton, New York. Also in 2000, he donated $1,000 to John McCain's presidential campaign. In 2007, he donated $2,300 to Barack Obama's campaign, and in 2013, he donated $25,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign. At the time, he was said to be a Democrat who supported liberal causes.

After Trump was elected president in 2016, Bessent donated $1 million to Trump's 2017 presidential inaugural committee. In 2023 and 2024, he donated more than $1 million to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. In February 2024, Bessent hosted a fundraiser in Greenville, South Carolina, that raised nearly $7 million for Trump's campaign. In April, he hosted a Palm Beach, Florida, fundraiser that raised $50 million for the campaign. In July, Bessent was a key economic adviser to Trump.

On November 22, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Bessent to serve as the United States secretary of the treasury in his second administration. On January 16, 2025, Bessent appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Finance. At his confirmation hearing, Bessent advocated for tax cut extensions and tougher economic policies on China and Russia.

On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance advanced Bessent's nomination to the Senate floor by a 16–11 vote. On January 27, 2025, the Senate voted 68–29 to confirm Bessent's nomination. The same day, a woman with multiple Molotov cocktails and a knife who intended to murder Bessent was arrested at the United States Capitol. On August 18, 2026, the woman, Riley Jane English, was sentenced to 73 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to attempting to assassinate Bessent. It was also noted that in 2025 the United States Capitol Police saw a 57.7% increase in tips its threat investigators reviewed.

On January 28, 2025, Bessent was sworn in as the 79th secretary of the treasury by U.S. Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Bessent became the first openly gay person to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, the first openly gay U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in a Republican administration, and the second openly gay U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary.

On January 31, 2025, Bessent granted the Department of Government Efficiency team access to the Treasury Department's payment system. On February 3, 2025, he was named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; he immediately ordered the agency to halt all work.

In February 2025, Bessent and acting United States Secretary of Commerce Jeremy Pelter were tasked with implementing a United States sovereign wealth fund.

Bessent has characterized the present U.S. economy as a "barbell economy", explaining that while it has powerful financial and raw material sectors, it also possesses a weakened working class. He proposed a three-point economic plan for Trump modeled on Abenomics (lower deficit, monetary easing, and fiscal stimulus). Bessent opposes raising the federal minimum wage in the United States, calling it "more of a statewide and regional issue". He supports lowering interest rates, continuing Social Security, reducing government intervention in the economy, easing Supplementary Leverage Ratio regulations on banks, and expanding nuclear power. He also supported the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, praising the creation of Trump Accounts.

Bessent supports a strong dollar policy, differing from Trump and Vice President JD Vance, who have spoken in favor of a weak dollar policy. He has been labeled a gold bug, calling gold a historical "store of value". Bessent is pro-crypto and supports federal regulations on stablecoins, as well as the U.S. Strategic Bitcoin Reserve. After the penny was phased out due to its negative seigniorage, he expressed support for changing the composition of the nickel to cheaper materials to get production costs below 5 cents. Bessent endorsed the creation of the proposed $250 bill.

Bessent opposes the creation of a U.S. central bank digital currency. He supports establishing a U.S. sovereign wealth fund, and has proposed including government-sponsored enterprises in the fund. He supports raising FDIC insurance limits on bank accounts; as of 2025 they are set at $250,000. He supports abolition of the U.S. Senate filibuster.

Bessent proposed seeking an early confirmation of a replacement for Chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell, whose term expired in May 2026, as a way to reduce Powell's influence, prompting some criticism. Bessent later "walked back" the idea.

In 2022, Bessent praised Trump and former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe for containing China. He called China "ever more antagonistic". Bessent has supported tariffs in the second Trump administration. 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". 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." In April 2025, after Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, Bessent warned countries against retaliating, promising escalation. On April 9, Trump paused many of the tariffs; Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick were credited with convincing Trump to do so. Bessent has advocated pressuring U.S. trading partners to restrict their economic relationships with China.

According to his financial assets disclosure by the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, Bessent's net worth was at least $521 million as of December 28, 2024; his actual net worth is speculated to be around $600 million. At that time, he owned more than $50 million in each of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust, the Invesco S&P 500 Equal Weight ETF, and the Invesco QQQ, as well as real estate in the Bahamas worth $5 million to $25 million and a home in Cashiers, North Carolina, worth $5 million to $25 million. In 2025, he owned farmland worth up to $25 million in North Dakota that provides him a rental income of up to $1 million per year. Bessent said he divested his North Dakota farmland in December 2025 as part of his ethics agreement as secretary of the treasury.

Bessent lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. He previously lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is a member of the Huguenot Church, a non-denominational Christian religious association whose expansion his ancestors supported in 1680. He married John Freeman, a former New York City prosecutor, in 2011. They have two children, born through surrogacy.

Bessent reportedly has a close friendship with King Charles III. He was also friends with Donald Trump's brother Robert, whose ex-wife, Blaine Trump, is the godmother of Bessent's daughter.