Oligarchs and the Trump Admin: Scott Bessent

Net worth: Over $700 Million (As of December 28, 2024)

Who is Scott Bessent?

• Scott Bessent is a billionaire hedge fund manager whose wealth has largely come from investments in economic uncertainty and extractive industries. As an analyst for George Soros’ hedge fund, Bessent spent his early career exploiting financial crises in Britain and Japan for profit. 
• In 2015, Bessent left the Soros Management Fund to form his own firm, Key Square Group. Bessent’s long-time strategy of investing in oil and natural gas corporations like Transocean LTD, EQT Corp, and Noble Corporation form the basis of Key Square’s portfolio. But the firm also invests in BigTech (Meta and Palantir), BigAgriculture (Monsanto), cryptocurrency (ARK Invest) and weapons manufacturing (Haliburton).
• Although Bessent’s ties with the Trump family predate his relationship with the president, the two have gotten much closer since 2016. In addition to at least $1 million in personal donations towards Trump’s 2024 reelection, Bessent also co-hosted fundraising events for the campaign. 
• As an economic advisor to Trump’s 2024 reelection campaign, Bessent proposed that Trump should appoint a “Shadow Chair” to the Federal Reserve to sidestep Jay Powell’s authority
  • In an October 2024 interview for Barron’s, Bessent claimed that his idea had been well-received by the Trump campaign: “‘You could do the earliest Fed nomination and create a shadow Fed chair,” said Bessent. “And based on the concept of forward guidance, no one is really going to care what Jerome Powell has to say anymore.’ […] ‘This is my idea, not the president’s,’ Bessent said in an interview. But he said he has circulated the plan among Trump’s advisers, where it was well-received.”

What Does Scott Bessent Have To Gain From The Trump Administration?

• Trump rewarded Bessent’s campaign support with a nomination for Treasury Secretary in November 2024; a decision which raised Key Square Group’s stock value. 

How is Scott Bessent Leading The Trump Corporatist Agenda? 

• As Treasury Secretary, Bessent has seemingly leveraged his position in government to benefit his allies within Trump World and Wall Street. 
• In January 2025, less than a week into his term at Treasury, Bessent collaborated with DOGE head Elon Musk to give so-called “agency’s” representatives access to the federal payment system.
• Bessent also collaborated with DOGE to give Peter Thiel’s company access to IRS data. As RDP noted in one of our April 2025 newsletters, this massive grab at government data was “facilitated by DOGE, which features at least three Palantir alumni and a Thiel Fellow, at a Treasury Department helmed by Palantir investor Scott Bessent (the hedge fund Bessent founded is invested in Palantir), all under the authority of an administration featuring Vice President JD Vance, Peter Thiel’s personal pick for VP.”
• In April 2025, the Bessent reportedly tipped off a group of Wall Street investors to changes in tariff policy before they became public, prompting Elizabeth Warren to ask why Trump officials “appear to be providing Wall Street insiders secret information on the tariffs, while withholding that information from the public.”  
• 1789 Capital—an investment led by prominent Trump allies, including Donald Trump Jr.—implicated Bessent in their efforts to market a private tech conference as a Treasury Department-sanctioned event. According to October 2025 reporting by Wall Street Journal, the fund “pitched companies on sponsoring a conference it called the ‘Inaugural U.S. Treasury A.I. Summit,’ during which it said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent would unveil the Treasury Department’s artificial-intelligence strategy.”
• Bessent also briefly served as Acting Director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, where he also collaborated with DOGE to effectively “delete” the watchdog agency. In his week-long stint in charge, Bessent:
  • Immediately imposed an activity embargo at the agency, freezing public communications, enforcement actions, rulemaking, litigation, and guidance.
  • Halted oversight of non-bank fintechs—like Elon Musk’s X—by barring the CFPB from initiating “supervisory designation proceedings or designat[ing] any nondepository institution for supervision.”
• Bessent’s $20 million bailout for the Javier Milei-led Argentine economy in September 2025, functioned as a tax-payer funded handout to the Treasury Secretary’s close friend and former colleague, Rob Citrone.
  • Citrone—who had been heavily investing in Argentine debt and “companies that are closely tied to the performance of the overall economy—leveraged his relationships with Bessent to influence the Trump administration’s Argentina policy. As Jedd Legum of Popular Information noted: 
    • “When Argentina’s economy began to falter in April, it was Citrone who ‘intervened before Scott Bessent…to advocate for an IMF agreement with Argentina,’ CE Noticias Financieras reported. Bessent subsequently played a key role in convincing the IMF to extend a separate $20 billion currency stabilization package. (That package ultimately proved insufficient to stabilize the Argentine peso.) Shortly after the IMF deal was secured, Bessent traveled to Argentina to meet with Milei and other top Argentine officials. It was an unusual choice for the Treasury Secretary’s first foreign trip. Citrone arrived in Argentina at the same time as Bessent, meeting with Milei just before Bessent. During those meetings, Bessent emphasized U.S. support for Argentina’s economic agenda.”

For more information, see the Revolving Door Project’s Oligarchs in Trump World tracker.