Scott Bessent

Scott Kenneth Homer Bessent was born on August 21, 1962, in Conway, South Carolina, to Barbara (née McLeod) and Homer Gaston Bessent Jr. (one of three children acknowledged at the time of Homer's death). The Bessent family is of French and Scottish descent, and had a Baptist affiliation at times in its history. Scott's father founded and owned one of the Grand Strand's early real estate companies. His mother, a local businesswoman, assumed responsibility for that business when Homer was ill for a period in the 1960s. Scott's mother married five times, twice to Bessent’s father. John Jenrette, a disgraced member of the United States House of Representatives, was Scott Bessent's uncle.

Bessent had a summer job as a busboy at age 9. In 1980, he graduated from North Myrtle Beach High School in Little River, South Carolina. He considered attending the United States Naval Academy but decided not to as he was unwilling to lie about his sexual orientation.

Bessent graduated from Yale College in 1984 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a major in political science. He was on the board of the Yale Daily News, acted as president of the Wolf's Head Society, and was the class treasurer. He also chaired the 1984 Yale Alumni Fund and was an assistant to the director of athletics. As an undergraduate, Bessent interned with Jim Rogers, a co-founder of the Quantum Fund, after meeting him at a Yale career center event.

After college, Bessent worked at Brown Brothers Harriman, at the Riyadh-based company Olayan Group, and then at the hedge fund Kynikos Associates, under Jim Chanos. In Business Insider, Julia La Roche connected Bessent's work with Chanos to his eventual opportunity at Soros Fund Management (SFM), noting that George Soros was a major Chanos client. In the Yale Daily News, Asher Boiskin suggested Soros himself recruited Bessent. In 1992, Bessent was a leading member of the SFM team whose bet on the Black Wednesday collapse of the British Pound sterling earned the firm over $1 billion. Some sources, such as Forbes, call Bessent a "protégé" of Soros.

After resigning from SFM in 2000, Bessent founded a $1 billion hedge fund, Bessent Capital. The fund closed in 2005. Bessent has said he learned that he should not change his style or the firm's approach because of investor preferences. He was also a senior investment adviser to fund-of-funds Protégé Partners. Bessent returned to SFM as chief investment officer from 2011 to 2015. His bet against the Japanese yen in 2013 yielded more than $1.2 billion in profit in three months.

From 2006 to 2011, Bessent was an adjunct professor of economic history at Yale, teaching three courses.

Bessent left SFM in 2015 to launch Key Square Group, a hedge fund named after a spot on the chessboard, with Michael Germino, who had been the global head of capital markets at SFM. It received a $2 billion anchor investment from George Soros. Key Square uses geopolitics and economics to make macro investments. Its main fund returned 13% in 2016 but declined or broke even every year from 2017 to 2021 before making major gains in 2021, 2022 and 2023. The inconsistent track record scared away clients. Assets under management shrank from $5.1 billion in 2017 to $577 million in 2023 and the number of institutional investors declined from 180 to 20 over the same period. It earned a "double digits" percentage profit in 2024 betting that U.S. stocks would rise after Trump won the election.

In 2018, as part of a prearranged deal, the firm returned Soros's investment as it took in other assets. Its investors include Australia's sovereign wealth fund, Future Fund. …

In 2000, Bessent hosted a fundraiser for Al Gore at his home in East Hampton, New York. Also in 2000, he donated $1,000 to John McCain's presidential campaign. In 2007, he donated $2,300 to Barack Obama's campaign, and in 2013, he donated $25,000 to Hillary Clinton's campaign. At the time, he was said to be a Democrat who supported liberal causes.

After Trump was elected president in 2016, Bessent donated $1 million to Trump's 2017 presidential inaugural committee. In 2023 and 2024, he donated more than $1 million to Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. In February 2024, Bessent hosted a fundraiser in Greenville, South Carolina, that raised nearly $7 million for Trump's campaign. In April, he hosted a Palm Beach, Florida, fundraiser that raised $50 million for the campaign. In July, Bessent was a key economic adviser to Trump.

On November 22, 2024, President-elect Donald Trump announced his intention to nominate Bessent to serve as the United States secretary of the treasury in his second administration. On January 16, 2025, Bessent appeared before the United States Senate Committee on Finance. At his confirmation hearing, Bessent advocated for tax cut extensions and tougher economic policies on China and Russia.

On January 21, 2025, the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance advanced Bessent's nomination to the Senate floor by a 16–11 vote. On January 27, 2025, the Senate voted 68–29 to confirm Bessent's nomination. The same day, a woman with multiple Molotov cocktails and a knife who intended to murder Bessent was arrested at the United States Capitol. On August 18, 2026, the woman, Riley Jane English, was sentenced to 73 months in federal prison and 3 years of supervised release after pleading guilty to attempting to assassinate Bessent. It was also noted that in 2025 the United States Capitol Police saw a 57.7% increase in tips its threat investigators reviewed.

On January 28, 2025, Bessent was sworn in as the 79th secretary of the treasury by U.S. Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh. Bessent became the first openly gay person to lead the U.S. Treasury Department, the first openly gay U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet member in a Republican administration, and the second openly gay U.S. Senate-confirmed Cabinet secretary.

On January 31, 2025, Bessent granted the Department of Government Efficiency team access to the Treasury Department's payment system. On February 3, 2025, he was named the acting director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; he immediately ordered the agency to halt all work.

In February 2025, Bessent and acting United States Secretary of Commerce Jeremy Pelter were tasked with implementing a United States sovereign wealth fund.

In August 2025, the Office of Government Ethics notified Senate Committee on Finance chair Mike Crapo that Bessent "has failed to timely comply with certain terms of the ethics agreement he signed".

On October 15, 2025, Bessent said the U.S. would work to create a strategic mineral reserve, potentially with JPMorgan Chase. He added that the U.S. would set price floors across multiple industries, and potentially take equity stakes in other rare-earth element companies to reduce reliance on China, as the U.S. …

Bessent lives in Charleston, South Carolina, and Washington, D.C. He previously lived in Greenwich, Connecticut. He is a member of the Huguenot Church, a non-denominational Christian religious association whose expansion his ancestors supported in 1680. He married John Freeman, a former New York City prosecutor, in 2011. They have two children, born through surrogacy.

Bessent reportedly has a close friendship with King Charles III. He was also friends with Donald Trump's brother Robert, whose ex-wife, Blaine Trump, is the godmother of Bessent's daughter.

Bessent and his sister Wyn made donations to establish the H. Gaston Bessent, Jr. Library at Yale University, in their father's honor. Bessent, Wyn, and the rest of their family created the Kenneth V. McLeod Rehabilitation Center at the Shriners Hospital for Children in Greenville, South Carolina, in memory of their maternal grandfather. He has supported restoration of the Nathaniel Russell House, a National Historic Landmark in Charleston. Bessent also supports the King's Trust in London and the Harlem Children's Zone in New York City.

Bessent has participated in Dialog, a secretive, invitation-only social club founded by Peter Thiel and Auren Hoffman. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York.