Though he’s previously made a name for himself on Wall Street working for billionaire Democrat megadonor George Soros, Key Square Capital Management CEO and founder Scott Bessent is ready to help President-elect Donald Trump guide the U.S. economy into “a golden age.”
“Everyone asks me, what do you tell President Trump he should do? I don’t have to tell Donald Trump he should do anything. He’s done it. We had a great economy under Trump 1.0,” Bessent said Thursday on “Fox & Friends.”
“I think under Donald Trump,” he continued, “we could have a golden age for the next four years.”
On Tuesday, billionaire investor John Paulson announced he would be dropping out of contention for Trump’s Treasury secretary nomination, putting focus squarely on Bessent and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO and transition co-chair Howard Lutnick.
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The Wall Street Journal has reported that Lutnick and his allies are making a tough play for him to be picked, with Lutnick allegedly approaching Trump directly to express his interest.
Key Square Capital Management founder and CEO Scott Bessent could soon become President-elect Trump’s Treasury pick. (Getty Images/Photo illustration)
But Bessent said Thursday that “it’s all President Trump’s decision. He made great decisions on the campaign,” and that he wants to join the 47th president in boosting manufacturing, energy dominance and technology advancements.
“We’re going to have peace, and we’re going to have this technology boom. I mean, think about the coalition that Donald Trump assembled. This was the greatest political comeback in history,” Bessent noted.
“And it was a combination of working-class Americans and Elon Musk, the richest person in the world. Who else could do that but Donald Trump?”
During the campaign cycle, Bessent was also a top financial backer of Trump – donating an estimated $3 million – and an advocate for tax reform and deregulation, particularly to spur more bank lending and domestic energy production.
The Key Square Capital patriarch manages nearly $600 million in assets today under his hedge fund. He’s a South Carolina native and 1984 graduate of Yale University, who worked for the Soros Fund from 1991 to 2000 and rose as the firm’s head of European allocation until his departure.
He returned to Soros from 2011 to 2015 as the fund’s chief investment officer, before departing again to run Key Capital Square with a $2 billion investment from Soros himself.
“I grew up on a fishing village, a little river, South Carolina,” he told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade. “Our family had some economic hardship when I was younger. I got my first job when I was nine. I had three jobs to make my way through Yale.”
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“And I came to Wall Street, only thing I knew was something bad happened in 1929. And I’ve had a great career,” Bessent reflected. “And the opportunity to be able to give back to the country would be incredible.”
“I will tell you, as your colleague upstairs, Maria Bartiromo says,” Bessent further pointed out, “Donald Trump is the single most sophisticated leader in terms of economics we’ve ever met. And Maria and I have met a lot of leaders.”