https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-names-hedge-fund-founder-scott-bessent-as-pick-for-treasury-secretary
President-elect Donald Trump announced Friday that he’ll nominate billionaire hedge fund manager Scott Bessent, an advocate for deficit reduction, to serve as his next treasury secretary, one of several personnel decisions that he unveiled as he closed out the workweek.

The announcements showed how Trump was trying to balance competing perspectives as he pursues an aggressive and sometimes contradictory economic agenda that includes cutting taxes, reducing government spending, putting tariffs on foreign imports and lowering prices for American consumers.

Trump said Bessent, who is closely aligned with Wall Street and could earn bipartisan support, would “help me usher in a new Golden Age for the United States.”

Bessent, 62, is the founder of hedge fund Key Square Capital Management, after having worked on-and-off for Soros Fund Management since 1991. If confirmed by the Senate, he would be the nation’s first openly gay treasury secretary.

He told Bloomberg in August that attacking the U.S. national debt should be a priority, which includes slashing government programs and other spending.

“This election cycle is the last chance for the U.S. to grow our way out of this mountain of debt without becoming a sort of European-style socialist democracy,” he said then.

As of Nov. 8, the national debt stands at $35.94 trillion, with both the Trump and Biden administrations having added to it. Trump’s policies added $8.4 trillion to the national debt, while the Biden administration increased the national debt by $4.3 trillion, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a fiscal watchdog.