U.S. President-elect Donald Trump greets Elon Musk earlier than attending a viewing of the launch of the sixth check flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket, in Brownsville, Texas, U.S., November 19, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Via Reuters
Donald Trump‘s first administration was chock filled with super-rich figures whose mixed wealth exceeded $5 billion, marking an unprecedented marriage of cash and govt energy.
Trump’s second time period may make that whole seem like chump change.
More than half a dozen of the Republican president-elect’s picks for his incoming administration are both confirmed billionaires or extensively imagined to be. Numerous others are multi- or centimillionaires.
The richest by far is Elon Musk, whom Trump has tapped to co-lead a bespoke advisory group tasked with slashing purported authorities waste.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is the world’s wealthiest particular person, with estimates putting his web price above $346 billion and as excessive as $362 billion.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the entrepreneur and former presidential candidate working with Musk on the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is price $1 billion, in keeping with Forbes.
The nonprofit Americans for Tax Fairness final month estimated that the common web price amongst Trump, Vice President-elect JD Vance and his high appointees is $616 million.
For comparability, Forbes estimated the overall web price of President Joe Biden‘s complete Cabinet at $118 million. And the tax group’s evaluation is probably going a low-ball estimate, because it got here earlier than Trump introduced a slew of different extremely prosperous picks.
In the previous week, he has picked billionaire monetary companies CEO Warren Stephens as his ambassador to the UK, billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg as deputy protection secretary, and enterprise capitalist David Sacks as his crypto czar.
Trump additionally picked Kelly Loeffler, a former U.S. senator who was reportedly thought of the seemingly richest person on Capitol Hill whereas in workplace, to steer the Small Business Administration.
The similar day, he selected billionaire CEO Jared Isaacman to go NASA.
Over the weekend, he chosen Charles Kushner, the daddy of Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, as his selection for U.S. ambassador to France.
The newcomers be part of an array of different super-wealthy Cabinet picks, together with billionaire Howard Lutnick for Commerce secretary, WWE Co-founder Linda McMahon for Education secretary and Scott Bessent for Treasury secretary.
Trump additionally has picked billionaire Massad Boulos, the father-in-law of Trump’s daughter Tiffany, as a high Middle East advisor.
And Trump selected Dr. Mehmet Oz to steer the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. Oz, as of 2022, was price as a lot as $300 million, in keeping with a New York Times evaluation of a monetary disclosure Oz filed throughout his failed bid for a U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania.
He misplaced that marketing campaign to Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who had labored to color Oz as out-of-touch — a process made simpler when Oz posted a viral video complaining about the price of assembling a crudités platter.
Musk and Ramaswamy will not must be confirmed by the Senate: Their group will function outdoors of presidency and work intently with the Office of Management and Budget.
But different rich Trump picks might want to navigate the method of being publicly confirmed by means of the Senate, placing a highlight on myriad potential monetary and moral conflicts they could carry.
The procession of plutocrats may additionally threat watering down Trump’s populist model, which gained help amongst working-class voters within the 2024 election.
To make certain, being wealthy hasn’t been a legal responsibility for Trump but. His billionaire standing has lengthy been a key characteristic of his public persona, and it is a part of his enchantment to a lot of his supporters. He is by far the richest particular person ever to function president, presently price greater than $6 billion, per Forbes.
But with the administration poised to usher in a degree of wealth that dwarfs any that got here earlier than it, the nominees’ private fortunes may develop into extra of a front-burner subject.
