The Senate confirmed Scott Bessent as Treasury secretary

Scott Bessent was confirmed by the Senate as the new Treasury secretary. The 62-year-old investor garnered 68 votes in favor and only 29 against, achieving broad bipartisan support. Bessent will succeed Janet Yellen at the Treasury Department and become responsible for carrying forward President Donald Trump's economic agenda.

John Fetterman (D-PA), Mark Warner (D-VA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Jon Ossof (D-GA), were among the Democrats who voted in favor of Bessent's nomination.

"Scott Bessent's confirmation as United States Secretary of the Treasury highlights President Trump's dedication to restoring economic strength and stability. America is BACK," they celebrated from the White House on their X account.

Bessent will be accompanied by a team already announced by the president: Daniel Katz as chief of staff, Ken Kies: as undersecretary for fiscal policy, Alexandra Preate as senior adviser to the secretary, Hunter McMaster as director of policy planning and Samantha Schwab as deputy chief of staff.

In turn, Trump nominated Michael Faulkender as deputy secretary of the Treasury. He is a former University of Maryland professor who served in the Treasury during the first Trump administration.

Who is Scott Bessent?

Born in South Carolina, he is an investor and founder of hedge fund Key Square Management, an investment management firm that in 2023 had $600 million in assets.

Throughout his extensive career, he also worked for George Soros. He joined Soros Fund Management (SFM) in 1991 and remained there until 2000, becoming head of European allocation. After five years as a professor of economic history at Yale University, he returned to SFM in 2011 as chief investment officer. He stayed until 2015 and left for good to found the aforementioned hedge fund.

During his confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, he defended using tariffs as a negotiating tool, claimed that the United States has a spending problem and argued against raising the minimum wage at the federal level.

He even defended increasing Joe Biden's sanctionson Russian oil. "I think if any officials in the Russian Federation are watching this confirmation hearing, they should know that if I'm confirmed, and if President Trump requests as part of his strategy to end the Ukraine war, that I will be 100% on board with taking sanctions up - especially on the Russian oil majors - to levels that would bring the Russian Federation to the table," Bessent said.