Scott Bessent

Announced as Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Treasury

Scott Bessent is a billionaire investor and Republican megadonor. Bessent is the founder, chief executive officer, and chief investment officer of Key Square Group, a macro investment firm through which he traded $2 billion in 2016. Bessent is also founder of All Seasons Press, a right-wing alternative to mainstream publishers. All Seasons has published books by former Trump administration officials including Mark Meadows and Peter Navarro as well as about controversial extremist MAGA operatives like Tucker Carlson.

All Seasons Press was started “to publish the best writers, politicians, and pundits in the conservative movement. The company is open to welcoming those authors who are being attacked, bullied, banned from social media, and, in some cases, outright rejected by politically correct publishers”—a move partially in response to corporate America’s reaction to January 6th. There was a gap in the market for publishers who were willing to take on authors that wanted to spread the big lie or support former President Trump.

At first, Bessent’s involvement with All Seasons Press was not clear, possibly due to his ties to George Soros. According to Tablet Magazine - “Bessent headed Soros’ London office for most of the 1990s and served as chief investment officer for Soros Fund Management from 2011 to 2015. He invested $2 billion of Soros’s money in 2015 to launch his own shop, Key Square Capital Management.” Bessent’s secretive involvement led to legal disputes with author Lee Smith. Smith accused All Seasons press of fraudulent practices to suppress his book critical of Soros.

Despite his association with Soros, Bessent has made significant donations to Republican causes - “Bessent gave $125,000 to Paul Ryan’s PAC in the first half of 2017, along with $150,000 to the RNC that October.” He has given over $1.5 million to the RNC, NRCC, and NRSC since Trump’s election in 2016, according to FEC filings. Additionally he has given to Trump directly - according to MarketWatch, “disclosures show a $500,000 contribution in February and three contributions of $250,000 each across December, January, and March. He was among the co-chairs of a Trump fundraising event in April that featured major Wall Street players.”

As founder of Key Square Capital, Bessent has led a variety of controversial investments including a $35 million position in tobacco company Philip Morris, $6 million in ammunition manufacturer Olin Corp, a combined $74 million in Chinese e-commerce giants Alibaba and JD.com, and a combined $13 million in Peabody Energy and Arch Resources, the two largest coal producers in the United States.

Bessent was also involved in some of the most famous (and controversial) trades in financial history. This includes the 1992 trade that “broke” the Bank of England by shorting the British pound, and later being dubbed “The Man Who Broke the Bank of Japan” after making approximately $3.5 billion on the Abenomics trade from 2012-2015.

On policy, Bessent is aligned with Trump’s agenda. He advocated for deregulation and more U.S. oil production saying “I might even advise [Trump] to campaign on three arrows. It would be 3% real economic growth, and how do you get that? Through deregulation, more U.S. energy XLE production, slaying inflation and forward guidance on competence for people to make investments — so that the private sector can take over from this bloated government spending.”