Today in “Sentences I Never Thought I’d Write”: Donald Trump has nominated a gay dad for Treasury secretary. Billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, if confirmed to the powerful position, would be at the head of Trump’s economic agenda. Who is Bessent and what does his nomination mean?
The Yale-educated Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management. He and his husband, attorney John Freeman, have two children and live in South Carolina. If confirmed, Bessent would be the first out LGBTQ Treasury secretary and the second LGBTQ Cabinet secretary to receive Senate confirmation, following Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. (Richard Grenell, as acting director of national intelligence during Trump’s first term, also held a Cabinet-level position, but did not go through Senate confirmation because the position was temporary.)
Bessent recently wrote an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in support of Trump’s economic plans (about which many remain skeptical, as NPR’s All Things Considered recently reported). He has been “an avid fundraiser for Trump and a defender of the president-elect in media appearances,” according to Axios, and NPR reports that Bessent “has been friends for years with Vice President-elect JD Vance, and with members of the Trump family.” In a statement on Truth Social, Trump himself said, “Scott has long been a strong advocate of the America First Agenda.”
But Bessent’s previous job was as chief investment officer of Soros Capital Management, founded by Democratic mega-donor George Soros; the New York Times calls him Soros’s “protégé” (though Reuters notes a recent interview in which Bessent said he hasn’t spoken with Soros since 2016). While Bessent himself is a “longtime Republican donor,” according to the Times, he has also donated to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and once hosted a fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee and Al Gore. A second Times article clarifies, however, that all but $300,000 of the $15 million he has donated to political causes has gone to Republicans.
Does his willingness to offer some support to Democrats, however, indicate he may be more moderate than other Trump nominees? Perhaps, although that’s a low bar to clear. Several business leaders interviewed by CNN this morning seemed to think Bessent was a moderate and stable choice, while others worried that he would promote policies that favor big corporations and the wealthy, and that ultimately, Trump could ignore any attempts at moderation.
Does it matter that Bessent is a gay man? The New York Times says that according to Will Trinkle, who co-hosted the aforementioned event for Gore, Bessent was “a strong advocate for gay rights and marriage equality.” I suspect Bessent’s advocacy, if any, will be much quieter if he is confirmed; I do not predict that he or anyone will become an outspoken voice for LGBTQ equality within the Trump administration. Whether he would do anything behind the scenes (or if his efforts would include LGBTQ equality across the spectrum) is pure speculation, although we can hope. LGBTQ equality does positively impact a country’s economy. (See M. V. Lee Badgett’s The Economic Case for LGBT Equality, among other sources.)
I still have a hard time, though, fathoming why any LGBTQ person would support a candidate/president whose policies are so strongly anti-LGBTQ. (In fact, most don’t; 86% of LGBT voters voted for Kamala Harris in 2024, versus 12% for Trump, per an NBC News exit poll.) I also fear that Bessent’s presence would allow the administration to claim an inclusivity and openness they don’t really have, as proven by Trump’s other actions and nominees.
The most I can say at this point is that, compared with some of Trump’s picks for other top positions, at least Bessent seems to have relevant experience for the job. It remains to be seen whether he uses that experience, if confirmed, to truly benefit all Americans.
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