A native of South Carolina, Bessent graduated from Yale University and began his career at Brown Brothers Harriman, one of the oldest investment firms in the United States.
He made a name for himself in the 1990s by betting against the British pound and the Japanese yen while working for Soros, a major donor to the Democratic Party.
In 2015, he created his own fund, Key Square Capital Management, which is known for investments based on large-scale economic policies.
He also taught economic history at Yale University, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Institute.
He and his husband, a former New York prosecutor, married in 2011 and have two children. He is known for his philanthropy in South Carolina, where his family has deep roots.
Bessent defended the tariffs — a core part of Trump’s protectionist agenda — arguing that opposition to them is rooted in political ideology rather than “considered economic thought.”
But he also characterized Trump’s support for such border taxes as a negotiating tool, suggesting the president-elect isn’t necessarily looking to aggressively raise tariffs.
That position makes him more moderate than others whose names have been put forward for the post of Treasury Secretary, such as former US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
Still, Besent was a strong supporter of Trump’s embrace of the crypto industry. Such support would make him the first Treasury Secretary to openly champion cryptocurrency, sending a clear signal that Trump is serious about making the US the “crypto capital of the planet.”
Bessent said in an interview with Fox News over the summer that he thinks cryptocurrencies are a good fit for the Republican Party and that Democrats have overreacted to fraudsters like Sam Bankman-Fried.
“Crypto is about freedom,” he said.
